SoCalHoops Playoff News

CIF-SS IV-AA Championship:   Harvard-Westlake Takes
Title From El Segundo--(Mar. 1, 2002)

CIF-SS Division IV-A Boy's Championship Game

For most of the season, El Segundo has been ranked No. 1 in the division not only by SCIBCA, but also by us, consistently ahead of Harvard-Westlake.    But tonight, H-W won the only poll that really matters, and they did it convincingly, beating El Segundo in just about every department there is in basketball.   They outrebounded, out-shot, out-hustled, and the Wolverines kept their cool on the court while the Eagles of El Segundo definitely didn't.

Harvard-Westlake won 80-62, but at times it was much worse than that for El Segundo, and at times, it was also a lot closer... and no, we're not talking about when it was 0-0 at the beginning of the game either.....

The clear star of this game for Harvard-Westlake was again super-soph Bryce Taylor who scored 29 points (16 in the first half), including going 6-6 from the line, and he came up big for the Wolverines every time he was called upon to score...which was just about every time he touched the ball.  H-W's senior point guard, Craig Weinstein, added 18 points (9 in the first half and 9 in the second half)   and had a big game, at least for three quarters until he got into foul trouble and had to sit for about half of the fourth quarter.  Weinstein also finished with 6 assists and 6 steals, and one blocked shot.  During his absence from the game in the fourth quarter,  however, El Segundo managed to trim what had been a 17 point deficit down to 8 points, but the Eagles never got any closer than that, and Harvard-Westlake won its first CIF-Section title since Jason and Jarron Collins, now in the NBA, were seniors,    i.e., since 1997.

At one point, El Segundo trailed in this game by more than 20 points....At the half the score was 42-23, and it looked like the rout was on.   But El Segundo, which  is a team really focused around two principal players, seniors DeShawn Strong and Jeramie Hopson, managed to steadily cut into the Harvard-Westlake lead, outscoring the Wolverines 22-14 in the critical third period.   Still, even with that 8 point second-half swing,  Harvard-Westlake still led comfortably at the end of three quarters by a score of 56-45.

And just when El Segundo looked like they were going to make a dent in that 11 point lead, having cut it to just 8 points with about 3:50 left to play, Jeramie Hopson, playing with three fouls and seemingly far from any trouble, was whistled for a foul on Weinstein as H-W was bringing the ball up and driving into the Wolverine frontcourt.   Hopson was mad at the call, and motioned to the referee that Weinstein had lowered his shoulder, believing that the foul had been offensive..... Hopson went running over the ref who had called the foul, motioned that it should be an offensive foul, and the referee glanced over and then turned to signal the original call to the table. 

And that's when it occurred... a move that would have gone undetected had Hopson just kept his composure, but which changed not only El Segundo's momentum as well as the course of the game, and possibly the outcome:   Hopson, having been whistled for his fourth foul, grimmaced and waved his hands at the ref,  who was at that moment probably only able to see Hopson peripherally, but like everyone else in the house, he must have seen Hopson's gesture with his hands, the fact that he motioned with disgust at the fourth foul call.... And unfortunately for El Segundo, that was all it took, and the ref again blew his whistle, signalling "T" with his hands, and El Segundo's best scoring threat from the perimeter was removed from the game, history.   Probably bot the way Hopson would have envisioned ending this game, and fortunately for him it won't be the last game of his career, because both the winner and runner-up go on to the State tournament.  But it also just as clearly was not what El Segundo needed at that moment either.

Simply put, it was not a great move.

With the lead at 8, H-W went to the line to shoot four free throws.  Weinstein made one of two, and Taylor (who had originally been fouled) hit both, and H-W quickly had boosted the lead back to 11.  H-W scored on two Taylor baskets again on the next two possessions, and H-W was back to a 15 points lead, with the clock running down and all El Segundo's best shooter could do was watch from the bench.

And so, depsite Hopson finishing with 23 points, including 9-19 shooting, 2 threes and hitting 9 of 15 from the line, along with 2 assists, and a game-high 31 points from Dashawn Strong, who also had 10 rebounds and 5 assists, as well as 4 steals, El Segundo was done, finished, through, and the Eagles just had no depth and no answer for the Wolverines, who were deep enough and talented enough to just keep throwing bodies at the opposition.  In fact, we were kind of surprised that El Segundo didn't have better outside shooting than they demonstrated tonight, and likewise, we were surprised that they really had no answer for Harvard-Westlake's motion offense either.

We're guessing that El Segundo will likely draw the IV-A champions Verbum Dei in the State Tournament, or perhaps Horizon of San Diego, or Garces Memorial.  Look for H-W to be playing against either San Joaquin Memorial, which lost the Central Section D-IV title tonight to Garces, or they'll be playing Lincoln (talk about a contrast in styles)....Now the latter will be quite a game if that's the way things get seeded.

We'll have a bit more on this game tomorrow, when and if we have time to write anything else. In the meantime, here's the box score from the game:

Visitors: Harvard-Westlake

Home:  El Segundo

Harvard-Westlake    14     28    14    24--80
El Segundo                 9     14    22    17--62

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