war on the floor second report

SoCalHoops Recruiting News

War On The Floor: Day Two
Report By Dave Keefer--(June 25, 2001)

[Dave Keefer writes regularly for California Preps, and he is covering the War on the Floor Tournament for us as well as for them while we are in Palm Springs for the boys' tournament there. We'll have more from Dave on the War on the Floor throughout the tournament. Here's Dave's second report]

No real surprises on Sunday: Fairfax continued to terrorize opponents, there was plenty of other good play to report on, and Dennis Magro did another great job keeping things running. The highlight of the day may have been watching an ailing Bort Escoto (Dennis’ partner in running this event) gamely make his way to the Sylmar/Chaminade game late in the day, just as his Sylmar team was taking a timeout to set up a final play with the score tied 57-57. Bort gingerly walked to the huddle, careful not to reinjure his back. He drew up the final play and sat down to watch the ending. Sorry, you’ll have to read the recap below to see what happened…

Here’s a summary and some comments of the day’s games we attended, with most of the scores listed at the end of this article:

Clovis West 83, Grant 63

We tried to catch some teams play that we missed on day one. Clovis was first up and we were curious to see how they would play without their star and leader of last season, Stanford-bound PG Chris Hernandez. They’re probably not as good but they’re sure not bad. They still have talent and depth, and a good pressure defense to throw at opponents. We had a chance to talk to assistant coach Josh Shapiro who is quite high on the current team’s abilities. Sr. Brian Thurman is now the PG and, while he’s no Chris Hernandez (who is?), he appears to be more than adequate to run the offense. Two other players should provide plenty of help to anchor the team in the upcoming season. Sr. Nick Debban showed a very good inside game and he can score a lot of points in the paint. Josh says he can stroke the outside shots too. Nick scored 20 points in the Grant game, most of them in the paint and at the ft line. Another player worth noting is Jr. (to be) Tyrese McDaniel who tossed in 8 points and should continue to get better with experience. More about the game: Grant pulled out to a surprising 23-18 lead but Clovis’ pressure defense eventually took its toll as Clovis won going away.

Oxnard 50, Santa Monica 46

Oxnard is also replacing its star from last season, USC-bound Nick Curtis. We don’t know if they’ll be as good this year either but they have a good base to work with. They were a little hard to gauge in this game because their excellent PG Jonathan Davis seemed to be hampered and slowed by some sort of minor injury to his leg. He wasn’t nearly as active as we saw him to be in the playoffs last year. However, he did a good job of directing the offense, which is anchored by Lee Abair and Shamir Simmons. An assistant coach told us that another player who is destined for stardom is young Henry Patterson who will only be a sophomore this next season. In the game at hand, Abair was quite impressive. He displayed a lot of skills in the paint at both ends of the court – getting rebounds and loose balls. He has a nice touch at shooting and passing. This win for Oxnard was their third in three games in the tourney. Santa Monica’s main man is Greg Walker (19 points) but he couldn’t prevent his team from dropping to 2-1 in the tourney. But he’ll be back for better things ahead we’re sure.

Fairfax 86, Burbank 50

Evan Burns

Alex Bausley

Burbank played well enough to get Fairfax’s attention in this one. Not that Fairfax isn’t expending lots of high-octane energy in all their games. But this game was closer than the rest, due in part by star Evan Burns’ absence from the lineup until very late in the first half. We’re not sure why he was kept out this long but he played well (as usual) and finished with 12 points. He and the rest of the team had way too much for Burbank to handle and Fairfax had another easy win. Alex Bausley continued to impress and had 9 points, all in the first half. It’s becoming obvious that no one is likely to come close to stopping Fairfax in this tournament. The talk is centering around who in the Southern Section can handle them. Some say possibly Westchester, maybe Mater Dei. Villa Park was mentioned. It’s hard to imagine anyone better at this point.

Sylmar 74, Campbell Hall 65

We saw one conflicting score that said 75-64 but we’ll go with the above. Sylmar only led 34-32 at the half but pulled away when Lewis Darby (10 points) led a ferocious burst. He may not be playing for Fairfax but Lewis showed he can dunk with the best of ‘em. He made at least three acrobatic dunks, one being a spinning backwards slam. But he has more to his game than that and Sylmar should be exited to have him as their own. Sam Harris played another solid game for Sylmar and led the team in scoring with 15 points. He too can slash to the rim and finish. Matt Llewellyn had another outstanding game for Campbell Hall, exploding for 31 points.

Fairfax 102, Bullard 26

Kevin Bell

Wow! Again. Fairfax just has too many weapons for mortal teams to contend with. We don’t mean to pour on the accolades, but we are thoroughly impressed. The score was 21-0 before Bullard finally got on the scoreboard. And Bullard really didn’t look all that bad but when Fairfax gets on a roll…

The lead ballooned to 56-14 at the half and a different star shone in this game. Jasha Blunt scored a cool 20 by halftime. He can really stroke the J. The score stood at 73-16 with 11:15 left in the game. At this point all of Fairfax’s starters were pulled, we think for good, but we left before the end of the game. This is a tight group of players, all the starters jumped and yelled from the bench whenever one of the nonstarters did a good deed.

Hart 69, Chatsworth 55

We wanted to see this game because we’ve never seen Chatsworth’s Franklin Robinson play. It was probably an off night because, although he certainly showed streaks of athletic ability, he couldn’t connect at all with his jumper. He also seemed to get frustrated as it became obvious that his team was going to lose. At one point he picked up a technical. But we’re willing to chalk this up as simply an off night on a long and exhausting day of basketball. He kept playing hard at both ends and made several nice blocks, got lots of rebounds, and made some nice finishes going to the hoop. Hart’s victory in this game was very impressive; they were playing back-to-back games after finishing off LA Poly 79-59 a few minutes earlier. They jumped off to a 32-13 lead and Chatsworth never seriously threatened, although they made a 10-0 run to make it 32-23. Hart answered with an 8-0 run of their own. Coby Kase scored 23 in the Poly game and probably had more in this one. (We lost our stat notes).

Sylmar 62, Chaminade 59 OT

Lewis Darby

Okay, if you’ve been following along you probably realize by the final score that Bort Escoto’s final play (in regulation) must have been less than perfect. The play was a busted one as Chaminade made a steal and went for the winning layup, only to miss the uncontested formality. Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s point out what a great game Joseph Dixon had for Sylmar. It’s usually Lewis Darby (17 pts) or Sam Harris (11 pts) grabbing the headlines. All Dixon did in one burst of scoring was hit three consecutive treys, then tack on a driving layup. He finished with 16 at the half and 22 total. But none were bigger than his acrobatic drive to the hoop with 1:30 left in overtime. The deuce ended up being the winning basket as it gave Sylmar the lead for good at 59-58. Darby coolly hit two free throws with 11 seconds left for the final margin of victory. Chaminade had two chances to tie but missed both three-point attempts as time ran out.

Clovis West - Thousand Oaks (CW by 40-34 at the half)

Nick Debban gave Clovis the lead at the half with the help of his whopping 18 points. It’s a work night for us so we split to get home and write up our summary. We can tell you that Thousand Oaks was hanging tough and gave Clovis all they wanted. They look like a contender in the Marmonte League. Jerry and/or I will have more from the War as it continues to unfold.

Scores of games from Sunday in chronological order as they were played:

Campbell Hall 47, Huntington Park 40
Bullard 80, Canoga Park 66
Clovis West 83, Grant 63
Hoover 66, Notre Dame 52
Oxnard 50, Santa Monica 46
El Camino 47, Thousand Oaks 36 (no misprint)
Daniel Murphy/Inglewood – both no shows
Fairfax 86, Burbank 50
Alemany 48, Simi Valley 45
Chatsworth 85, Littlerock 73 (Robinson C, 30; Tim Anderson L, 24)
Sylmar 74, Campbell Hall 65
Notre Dame 41, Huntington Park 36
Hart 79, LA Poly 59
Fairfax 102, Bullard 26
Burbank 72, Canoga Park 52
Hart 69, Chatsworth 55
Taft 86, Montclair Prep 53
Littlerock 72, Canoga Park 52
Sylmar 62, Chaminade 59
Harvard-Westlake 76, Hoover 53
Saugus 88, Paraclete 63
Grant/El Camino, Clovis West/Thousand Oaks, Canyon/Calabasas, (all unknown)