LA City Section invitational results first round

We'd love to be taking a great interest in the LA City Section's "Invitational Tournament" which features the next best 16 teams after the seeding committee put the top teams in the City Championship bracket. But the fact of the matter is, that most papers barely provide any coverage of the Invitational Tournament, and this makes it difficult to get details, and in the case of the Locke v. Hollywood game, even a score. We've filled out the bracket as best as we can, but there are a couple of holes. We've also provided some details where they were accessible or other people supplied them. We have about half the games, which is not bad, all things considered. Here's what the bracket looks like for the LA City Section Invitational Tournament after the first round of games:

LA City Section Boys' Invitational Championship Tournament First round games February 18 7:30 p.m. *Higher Seed is Home Team			Quarterfinals Wednesday Feb. 23 Higher seed is home team	Semifinals Feb. 25 @ Alternate Sites	Finals March 4, Saturday @ Loyola-Marymount 3:30 p.m.
No. 16 Birmingham 50	@	No. 1 Venice 87	?TBA @ Venice
No. 9 Locke	@	No. 8 Hollywood	?TBA @ Venice
No. 12 LACES 66	@	No. 5 Hamilton 76	Hamilton @ North Hollywod
No. 13 University 59	@	No. 4 North Hollywood 71	Hamilton @ North Hollywod
No. 14 Roosevelt 65	@	No. 3 Granada Hills 76	Banning @ Granada Hills
No. 11 Canoga Park 58	@	No. 6 Banning 76	Banning @ Granada Hills
No. 10 Gardena 60	@	No. 7 San Fernando 71	San Fernando @ Manual Arts
No. 15 Marshall 38	@	No. 2 Manual Arts 90	San Fernando @ Manual Arts

The quarterfinals will be February 23, and we presume that before then, we'll find out whether the Gondoliers will be playing Hollywood or Locke. The Semi-finals will be played on Friday, February 25, and the Finals will be on Saturday, March 4, at 3:30 p.m. at LMU's Gersten Pavilion, which as it happens is also the same venue for the CIF Southern Section Division IV-AA, IV-A, V-A and V-AA Championship games which will be held on Friday night (coincidentally at the same time as the City Section Championship, which will be held at the Forum that same night).

Again, we don't have all the details from all of the first round games, because not all the games were reported by the local media and coaches just didn't send us their results, but we do have some. Here's what we know:

No. 1 Venice 87, No 16 Birmingham 50-- Montel Duhon scored 21 points and Kevin Eleby scored 19 points for the top-seeded Gondoliers in the Invitational Division victory at Venice. Edwards had 13, Brown 4, Kyle Morrison 10, Bigson 6, Connerly 2, Santos 2, Alexander 6 and Hall 4 for Venice. For Brimingham, the scorers were Henry 3, Moore 1, Ghazarian 13, Kohan 1, Mobarez 4, Spencer 16, Tatlan 8 and Halic 4. Birmingham ends the season with a record of 10-16. Scoring by quarters: Birmingham 8 12 14 16--50; Venice 30 11 18 26--85.

No. 2 Manual Arts 90, No. 15 Marshall 38--Mario Roberts scored 21 points and Onye Ibekwe had 20 points and 15 rebounds for the second-seeded Toilers in the Invitational victory at Manual Arts.

No. 3 Granada Hills 76, No. 14 Roosevelt-- Granada Hills improved to 15-11 with the win and advanced to the quarterfinals. GH was led by Midwin Francis' 20 points and 18 rebounds, and Price with 26 and 15 rebounds, 4 blocked shots. Hicks had 13 points and 5 steals for Granada Hills and others scoring were Nubla 6, Parks 2, Seals 1, Rosenfield 4 an dBurch 4. Roosevelt, which closes out the season at 14-11, was led by the following scorers: Lagunaas 18, Ibarra 32, Blanco 8, Valencia 2, Salcedo 2, Macedo 3. Scoring by quarters: Roosevelt--17 11 12 25--654; Granada Hills 11 22 23 20--76.

No. 4 North Hollywood 71, No. 13 University 59--North Hollywood was led by Keny Hauser's 21 points and 11 rebounds. Gus Ruiz had 11, Nathan Stern 11 and Johnson 12. Others scoring for the Huskies were Danipour 5, Karin 4, Roller 3 and 10 rebounds and Kim 4. University scorers were Trotter 28, Lewis 15, Brown 8, Peters 3, Long 2, Chou 2, Yermian 1. Scoring by quarters: North Hollywood--14 21 12 24--71; University--10 20 16 13--59. North Hollywood improved to 19-7 overall and advances to the quarterfinals.

No. 5 Hamilton 76, No. 12 LACES 66--David Fisher scored 36 points for the Yankees in the Invitational Division game at Hamilton.

No. 6 Banning 76, No. 11 Canoga Park 58--Jerry Jackson scored a game-high 30 points to lead the host Pilots (14-11) past the Hunters (11-14). Tony Lara added 16 points as Banning held Canoga Park to 22 points in the second half. Canoga Park's Jammie Harris scored 27 points and pulled down 11 rebounds but it wasn't enough as the Hunters fell in the first round to Banning at Banning. Others scoring for Canoga Park were Townsend 2, and 10 rebounds, Witherspoon 8, Brown 13 and 9 rebounds, and 6 assists, Egan 2, Stegall 3, and Neil 1. For Banning, Saavedra had 5, Mmeje 6, Meija 9, Aguirrez 5, Jackson 26 , Lara 18, and Quinine 8. Canoga Park ends the season at 11-14 overall. Scoring by quarters: Banning --25 16 20 15--76; Canoga Park-- 29 10 14 8--58.

No 7 San Fernando 71, No. 10 Gardena 60-- San Fernando was led by Maike Hernandez with 25 poiknts and 5 steals, Montes had 19 and S. Nevarez had 10 and 10 rebounds and 7 blocked shots. R. Nevarez scored 11 and had 12 rebounds and 4 blocked shots. Hoohuli had 2 and Gallegos 5 for the Tigers who improved to 15-10 and advanced to the quarterfinals. For Gardena, Scott had 2, Simpson 14, Wilson 10, Prescotte 22, Johnson 6, and Frison 6.