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SoCalHoops High School News

LA City Section Marine League
MLK Extravaganza This Saturday--(Jan. 10, 2001)

Ok, yes, there's another "Extravaganza" taking place over the weekend, making it three for the boys, and two for the girls that we know of here in SoCal. LA City Section (i.e., the Los Angeles Unified School District) decided that it would be a good thing for all the teams in the Marine League to compete against each other at one single location, and the result is that all six boys and girls teams in the Marine League (Carson, Gardena, Narbonne, Washington, San Pedro & Banning) will be playing at Harbor College.

We don't know enough about the girls' teams to really say much other than what we've read in some of the local papers and happened to come across on some of the other internet sites which cover girls' hoops, but we know a few things about some of the boys teams. Here's the schedule of games:

11:00 a.m. Girls: Washington vs. Gardena-- Gardena won the Fairfax Tournament and the LA High Tournament last month. Their key players are Alexis Johnson, Tramesha Watts, and Christina Mann. Don't know any of the Washington players, but they played in the semifinals of the Los Al Tournament last month.

12:30 p.m. Boys: Gardena vs. Washington--Gardena is a very athletic team that just doesn't seem to play very well together, and we can't tell if it's the coaching or the chemistry (or lack thereof) between and among the players. We saw Gardena play Verbum Dei at the Verb tournament last month, and they are athletic, but don't play smart. Arnold Johnson is a tremendously talented player and hopefully he'll be in the game every minute, because without him, Washington's Andre Patterson (who committed to, but didn't sign with UCLA), will be one of the best athletes in the house all day.

2:00 p.m. Girls: Carson vs. Banning — Carson will be led by Zipporah Chase, Crystal Gillespie and Denise Wilson. Don't know a thing about Banning.

3:30 p.m. Boys: Banning vs. Carson — Banning won the LA Hamilton Tournament last week. Alberto Aguirre and Joey Saavedra (especially Saavedra) are capable of putting up big numbers. Carson has guys like Ekene Ibekwe, Errol Jackson, Marques Washington and Chris Thomas. Should be a good game.

5:00 p.m. Girls: Narbonne vs. San Pedro--We're not sure if Narbonne is still ranked as the No. 1 team in the country, but if they aren't they're one of the best. Won the Brea Olinda tournament and the girls Chicago version of the TOC (the one where all the "big" or "high-profile" girls teams went, while the "smaller" schools went to the TOC in Santa Barbara this year). According to reports in the Daily Breeze (which is where we got some of the info on this event), "San Pedro is led by Wendy DiMaria, Tisha MacAfee and Chastity Brown." That's as much as we know.

6:30 p.m. Boys: San Pedro vs. Narbonne— San Pedro has a new coach in John Bobich (formerly at Pacific Hills) and they are doing well. Malik Rahh is their best player and he's capable of putting up some numbers. Narbonne has Uzoma Mmeje and Reggie Simms.

For those planning to attend, Harbor College is located at 1111 Figueroa Place, Wilmington, CA 90744 Tel: (310) 522-8200, and the Harbor College website has very clear directions as well as maps if you're planning to attend.