SoCalHoops High School News

CIF-SS Agape League Preview, Schedules:
League Parity With AV Christian?--(Nov. 4, 2000)

In our effort to get more information out as completely and as quickly as possible, we've decided to prepare some league overviews.   Not every league, but certainly those leagues which have teams in them who might be considered pre-season favorites to take a run at a CIF Southern Section Championship, and in this case, the Agape League has AV Christian in it, which has gone to the semifinals or finals the last few years, so if anyone complains "why are you featuring a preview of a league as small as this?" well, that's why.  

Utilizing this format, we should be able to get more information to everyone on who is playing where and when, and what the rosters will likely look like this season.  Again, it's just not going to be possible for us to feature every CIF or City Section league and team (consider that the Southern Section alone has 76 leagues, with an average of about 6+ teams in each), so don't say we're playing favorites. . . we'll take them in a somewhat random order, but will post these if, as and when we can.    We only have so much time in the day, and  we have our doubts that we'll be able to get through even those leagues we want to preview prior to the start of regular league play (which begins in December for some leagues)but who knows, we'll give it a shot. . . . Complicating matters further is the fact that not all schools made it to last season's playoffs, and thus we don't have access to complete (or even any) rosters in some cases (e.g., Joshua Springs, below).  Further complicating things, some of the coaches are new and we either don't know them, or haven't gotten enough information on their teams to say anything useful.  And some of these schools haven't even submitted schedules to the CIF, so we may or may not know anything about them. Still, this should be helpful to someone, somewhere.

We will still continue to feature our more in-depth previews and profiles, but we're trying to get as much information out in as short a time as possible, so complete coverage just isn't possible.  But we're going to try.

Agape League Overview

The Agape League is actually bigger this year by one school, as Bethel Christian Lancaster joins, having come over from the Desert Mountain League where they finished in last place, at 0-19 on the season, so their presence will not likely have much impact.  The league favorite should again be Antelope Valley Christian, but they graduated most of their experienced players.  Both Apple Valley Christian and Hesperia Christian return at least one potential high scorer, and the league could have a bit more parity this season than in the past three years.  

You can find this year's official CIF Agape league schedule at this link (or simply scroll down the page:

Here's a brief look at the individual teams (at least where we've been able to get some information)--the scoring and rebounding averages are from the CIF Media Information forms submitted by each school prior to the start of last year's CIF playoffs, so don't blame us if you think they are not accurate. 

Antelope Valley Christian Eagles Division V-A City: Lancaster Team Nickname: Eagles Colors: Black & Silver Head coach: David Nurse Assistant; Erin Nurse

Overall Record: 15-9; League Record: 8-0 (1st place)

Two years ago, at the Southern Section D-VA finals, AVC went up against Price, and both were looking for their first CIF title, and AVC didn't quite make it, losing to Price.  Last season AVC made it to as far as the semifinals, losing the Heritage Christian, which in turn lost to Price.  This season AVC loses some of its better players from last season but still has some weapons and a couple of new players coming up.  Gone are Matthew Nurse (5'-11" PG), Peter Pun, Peter Beaudin (6'-6" C/F),  Jeff Ober, and Mickael Bruckner (6'-2" SG/F), but the team returns Alfred Collins (5'-3" Sr. PG) and Jamal Flanagan (6'-2" Sr. SG),along with John Cho (6'-2" Sr. SF) and William Shue (5'-10" Sr. SG).  We don't expect them to make an inordinate amount of noise at the Division V-A playoffs this time around, because this is a young team, but then you just never know, because there's another Nurse (Wesley) on the way up who will be a freshman this season, a jet quick and agile ballhandler, and they've got some other players who may be able to make some things happen.  We'll get a better look at the team when the pre-season starts since they'll be at the Montclair Prep Tournament, one that we will be out watching.

Apple Valley Christian Warriors
Division: V-AA
City: Apple Valley
Nickname: Warriors
Head Coach: Rick Huff/Adam Caudle
Colors: Royal/Gold
Overall Record: 11-11; League Record: 4-4 (2nd)
Returning players:
Ryan Manahl (5'-11" So. F) 5 ppg, 4 rpg
Josh Vaughn (5'-5" So. G) 4 ppg, 4 rpg
Jay Sayegh (6'-1" Jr. C)  1 ppg, 2 rpg
Ray Acuna (6'-1" Jr. F) 4 ppg, 2 prg
Josh Jacobs (6'-3" So. F) 1 ppg, 1 rpg
Forrest Taylor (6'-4" Sr. F) 15 ppg, 6 rpg
Geoff Gutierrez (5'-9" So. G) 1 ppg, 1 rpg
Michael Stewart (6'-0" Sr. C) 15 ppg, 8 rpg

In the very crowded 64+ team bracket of the Division V-AA playoffs, Apple Valley Christian somehow managed to survive until the "Sweet 16" round, beating opponents like Bethel Christian Riverside (67-50), Sherman Indian (41-40), but then they ran into Campbell Hall, one of the teams which was favored to win the Division, and got blown out 80-30.  Whether they have the returning firepower to make a serious run in the playoffs this year is just an unknown. The team loses it's leading scorer, Leonard Carter (16 ppg) but they also return Forrest Taylor and Michael Stewart.   They could be strong again, certainly in league play (they have one league Championship to their credit, year unknown), so they've been there before.

Bethel Christian Lancaster
No information available
Head Coach: Hosie Ward

Hesperia Christian Patriots
Division V-A
City: Hesperia
Nickname: Patriots
School Colors: Red/White/Blue
Head Coach: Chad Bickley
Assistant Coach: Dave Booth
Overall record: 10-11; League record: 4-4 (3rd place)
Returning players:
Chris Rehrer (5'-10" Jr. G) 6 ppg, 5 rpg
Chris Allen (5'-8" Sr. G) 4 ppg, 1 rgp
Jesse McDonald (6'-1" So. G) 5 ppg, 2 rpg
Aaron Garcia (5'-10" So. G)
Shaun Thomas (5'-10" Jr. F) 8 ppg, 3 rpg
Bryan Glass (5'-10" So. G) 3.0 apg
Evan May (6'-1" Jr. F) 15 ppg, 13 rpg
Jordan Gustin (6'-0" Sr. F) 1 ppg, 1 rpg

The team lost in the first round of the playoffs last season (65-52 to Pioneer Baptist, which itself was then defeated handily by Shandon in the second round).  The team only lost three players to graduation, and among them, they only scored a combined 15 ppg, so it should not be that hard to replace those points, and they return Evan May, an outstanding scorer and rebounder.  They will be tough contenders in league, but the competition in the playoffs will likely result in an early elimination. . . but first they have to get there. We'll get a better look at them in December at the Santa Maria Valley Tournament.

Joshua Springs
Data not available
Coach: Derek Bogue
Overall Record: 4-16, League Record: 1-7 (5th place)
With a new coach,  and a more competitive schedule, Joshua Springs is still a complete unknown to us.

Victor Valley Christian Royals
Division V-A
City: Victorville, CA
Team Nickname: Royals
Colors: Purple/Gold/White
Coach: Kevin Vail
Assistant: Marcus Quarles
Overall record 10-11; League record 3-- (4th)
Returning Players:
Eric Belton (5'-6" Jr. G)
Jed Tyler (6'-0" Sr. G)
Matt Wade (5'-11" So. F)
Justin Snyder (5'-11" Sr. F
Jeremy Karlen (6'-2" Sr. F)
Charlie Gepford (6'-1" Sr. F)

A team which did not make the playoffs last season.   They had some early season wins over other small schools like Calvary Chapel Redlands (by 20, 69-49), Upland Christian (67-33), Owens Valley (68-48) but then when the games started to count,  they lost to just about everyone, including some rather devastating losses to teams like Woodcrest Christian (a 65-28 loss). They managed to finish strong, beating league rival Hesperia Christian, but then lost to Apple Valley Christian.  And to top off the good-news-bad-news, the team only  6 players to graduation, but they happened to be all of the leading scorers including Jared Osborne (13 ppg), Clint Gaultney (13 ppg), Nick Andre (6 ppg) and Joel Munoz (5 ppg).  The players returning averaged a combined 14 ppg, so Coach Vail is going to have to figure out where the offense is going to come from this season.

Complete Official Southern Section League Schedule:

 
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