SoCalHoops CIF State Tournament News

SoCal CIF State Regional- 1st Round
Boys D-I Game Details--(Mar. 9,  2000)

Boys Division I--First Round

Mater Dei 85, Crenshaw 66--The Mater Dei Monarchs (33-1) earned the right to play Westchester, a 74-56 winner Wednesday over Chino Hills Ayala, in a semifinal Friday at Ocean View by picking up the school's first win over LA City Section Crenshaw. Four times before in the Section Finals, Mater Dei had lost to Crenshaw.  In fact, Crenshaw had beaten Mater Dei 7 out of the last 8 meetings the schools had.    But Mater Dei's finally won an important one against the Cougars, behind sophomore Mikey Strawberry who collected 17 points, and junior center Jamal Sampson's 16 points and 13 rebounds.  Mater Dei's Ricky Porter and Steve Scoggin both scored 16 points, and 6'-5" point guard Cedric Bozeman had 11 points and 10 assists in the win. Mater Dei jumped out to an early lead with great shooting (61.5 % from the field) to take a 38-25 lead at the half.  But in the third quarter, the Cougars pulled ahead 56-55 behind and 22 point run which featured Chris Davis (6'-7" Sr. PF) scoring 12 points and Tommy Johnson (6'-4" Sr. SG), a Washington State signee, hitting two three pointers and and converting a four point play after being fouled while making another three.  But Mater Dei came back with a big 14-0 run in the fourth quarter which put an end to the Cougars' season and to Crenshaw Coach Willie West's hopes at winning an unprecedented  ninth State Title. West is currently the all-time winningest coach in the State Finals, with 8 division I titles.  The 14-0 run was sparked by Strawberry scoring on an offensive rebound putback after a missed shot, and then converting the three-point play after being fouled while making a reverse layup,   hitting another layup and a short jumper as the Monarchs sprang back to a 70-57 lead.  Strawberry scored 7 of Mater Dei's 14 points during the run, which also included a Porter three point basket. For Crenshaw, Chris Davis finished with 16 points and Johnson finished with 27 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Friday's game should be interesting for Jamal Sampson (6'-11" Jr. C) who played his first year at Westchester, on the State Championship team with Albert Miller, David Bluthenthal, Chris Osborne, Brandon Granville and Tony Bland, among others. None of the current crop of sophomores at Westchester who have been instrumental in bringing the Comets this far has played with Sampson, except on club teams.

Westchester 74, Ayala  56-- The host comets(25-6) were led by sophomore Keith Everage's 20 points as they pulled away from Chino Hills Ayala to claim a 74-56 victory in a Division 1 State First round playoff game at Loyola Marymount. Westchester got out of the gate early as their height advantage limited  the Bulldogs (28-6) to only 9 points in the first 11 minutes of the game.   Ayala went into halftime trailing by 13 and got down by as many as 18 at   49-31 with 6:54 remaining in the third quarter. However they pulled to within eight midway thry the fourth quarter behind two three pointers by Marc McCoy.  Chris Pacana had an off game for Ayala,  finishing with only 9 points on 2 of 14 shooting. McCoy finished with 16 for the bulldogs while DJ Lucas chipped  in with 9 before fouling out and Marcel Burke had 8. The comets got 14 points from sophomore Brandon Heath, 13 points from Jason Breland and 11 from 7'-0" junior Chad Bell; spohomore Jason McKinney added 8 points and some good defense down the stretch for Westchester. The comets move on to Friday's second round against Mater Dei.  The Comets outrebounded Ayala, 34-23, and experienced only one lapse, when the Bulldogs (28-6) charged from a 42-24 third-quarter deficit to within 53-43 at the end of the third.  Ayala shooting guard Marc McCoy, one of five senior starters, scored 10 of his 16 points in that period.   Ayala pulled to within 53-45 on D.J. Lucas' 10-foot baseline jumper, but Ayala was never closer than eight points and Westchester closed on a 9-0 run to make the outcome more one-sided. 

Clovis West 100, Simi Valley 64--Charlie Rodriquez   (6'-7" So. PF) scored a game-high 25 points, junior guard Chris Hernandez had 20 points and three other Golden Eagles hit double-figures as Clovis West, the four-time Central Section Division I champion, improves to 37-2 and advances to round two of the state tournament. Five Eagles scored in double figures. Simi Valley (28-4), which put together a 17 game winning streak this year and made it to the State Tournament for the first time since the Don McLean-era, was led by UCSB-signee Branduinn Fullove with 17 points and Dustin Villepigue (6'-9" Jr. PF) with 15 points and 8 rebounds, while Brett Michel (6'-6" Sr. F) finished with 13 points. This was Fullove's and Michel's last game together in their four year odyssey at Simi which saw them get close to titles, but never quite take one, and Fullove's 17 points gave him 2,216 during his career while Michel's 13 gave him 2,051.  Simi last year lost in the semifinals to Mater Dei, and this year lost in the Southern Section finals again to Mater Dei. Fueled by a trapping defense which kept up the pace, Clovis West unleashed a blistering second half on the visiting Pioneers.  In the first half, Simi Valley shot 16 of 26 from the field in the first half, including 13 points by Fullove, but were plagued by 14 turnovers. Still, they were in the game, trailing by only 8 at the half, 48-40.  But then Clovis West, behind Charlie Rodriguez and Chris Hernandez went on an 11-0 run to start the third quarter, and at the end of the third quarter led 75-52. Rodriguez took over inside with three consecutive baskets, Clovis West forced three early turnovers and Simi Valley was held scoreless until Dustin Villepigue scored with 4:44 remaining in the period.   Rodriguez scored all of the Golden Eagles' points during an 8-2 run as they they extended a 53-40 lead with 6:57 left in the quarter to 61-42 with 4:33 remaining.  In the second half, Simi had 19 turnovers, making it a total of 33 turnovers in the game, and that's not the way to win a title, certainly not against a pressure team like the Eagles, currently ranked the No. 3 team in the State and No. 13 in the country by USA Today.   Simi made only 9 of 26 shots in the second half. By picking up the win and advancing to the second round, Clovis earned the right to host the Southern Section Division I-AA champion Jackrabbits.  The game will take place tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. at Clovis West. The last time these two teams met, Poly won in the BCW "Battle of the Central Valley" in December. 

Long Beach Poly, 50, Carlsbad 43--Since the playoffs started with the Southern Section D-I-AA tournament two weeks ago, Long Beach Poly has played two home games, and then got their bus moving down the highway, playing four consecutive road games.  First the Jackrabbits (31-2) beat Rancho Cucamonga in Ontario in the quarterfinals; then they traveled back out to the Inland Empire to play at Eisenhower HS where they beat Rialto in the division semifinals; next the Jackrabbits made the trip to Orange County where they beat Ayala for the Soutern Section title at the Pond.   And last night they traveled to Torrey Pines, where Long Beach Poly,  a team that hasn't played at home since February 16, a school with the worst travel priority of any No. 2 seed in recent memory, earned the right to continue traveling with the win over Carlsbad last night before a packed house at Torrey Pines High School in San Diego.   Poly returns home, stops in for about 48 hours, and then gets on the bus again to travels about 250 miles north to Clovis, where they'll take on the Golden Eagles, the four-time Central Section champions who are currently ranked No. 13 in the country by USA today, a team the Jackrabbits beat in the BCW "Battle of the Central Valley."   On Wednesday night, while Poly never trailed, the San Diego Section champion Lancers (23-9) were never far behind.  With 3:12 left in the game, Carlsbad threatened, going on a 9-2 run which ended with Greg Nelson hitting a 3-pointer from the top of the key to tie the game at 38-38, but Poly managed to hang on for the win behind the clutch play of Wesley Stokes and Joe Travis. Tim Crenshaw (seven points) and sophomores Greg Nelson (eight points) and Derek Stockalper (seven points) return next year when the Lancers open a new 2,000-seat gym.  Carlsbad had tied the game at 38-38 with 3:15 to play when Nelson hit a three-point shot. But Poly kept the ball in Stokes' hands and he hit four unanswered free throws for a 42-38 lead with 1:53 to play.  Carlsbad managed two free throws from senior John Waardenburg (10 points) and a three-point field goal by Stockalper with 39 seconds to play to cut Poly's lead to 46-43. But the Lancers could get no closer as Stokes hit two more free throws for a 48-43 lead.  Stokes, who finished with a game-high 19 points, all but two in the second half, and 11 of them in the third quarter. Joe Travis, despite a severe case of the flu scored 10 points and grabbed 9 rebounds, 5 of them offensive. Markee White (6'-6" Jr. SF) and A.J. Diggs (5'-10" Sr. G)  each added eight rebounds. The only Carlsbad player able to reach double figures was John Waardenburg, who scored 10 points.

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