Potts, Gahr crown Sea Kings, face Serra in III-A semifinals

CIF BASKETBALL
PLAYOFFS
By Loren Kopff

NEWPORT BEACH-Back in mid November before the regular season began, Gahr boys basketball head coach Bob Becker said there were seven teams within the California Interscholastic Federation-Southern Section Division III-A which would be road blocks for his team in the playoffs. Corona Del Mar is one of them and the Gladiators took care of the Sea Kings this past Tuesday night in a quarterfinal game.
Despite blowing a 16-point second quarter lead, Gahr fought back and rode the sharp shooting of junior Davon Potts in the fourth quarter to pull out a 68-62 win in front of a hostile crowd. Fourth seeded Gahr will play top seeded Serra tonight at Cerritos High School for the right to play for a CIF championship next Saturday morning at the Honda Center.
“It’s a UW if I’ve ever seen one,” Becker said, referring to another ugly win. “We blew a 15-point lead obviously and we blew it early.”
Several times this season, Gahr (25-4) has seen double digit leads formed in the first half evaporate in the second half, then having to forge back for a win. Against Corona Del Mar, that 16-point lead would eventually be a three-point deficit late in the third quarter.
Both teams came out the gate shooting well as they each were true on seven of 16 shots from the field in the first quarter and combined for five three-pointers. Gahr was leading 19-18 but began the second quarter on a 15-0 run and some thought it was the beginning to what would be a rout. The Sea Kings got just two downtown shots in the stanza and trailed by 15 at the half. Still, that wasn’t good enough for Becker and his halftime speech to his team proved to be spot on.“Teams that have good shooters come out and shoot poorly early,” Becker said. “I told my guys at halftime that these guys are going to hit some shots. I just didn’t expect them to take a lead on us.”
Back to back three-pointers from Ramon Mejia and Danny Cheek began the second half for Corona Del Mar. The hosts would proceed to score 18 of the next 24 points of the third quarter and when Cheek drained his fourth long distance shot of the game with 1:47 remaining in the stanza, the Sea Kings had a 48-45 lead. Corona Del Mar sank 10 trifectas and is one of the best perimeter shooting teams Becker has faced this season.
Junior Javonte Sales tied the game at 52-52 with four seconds left, then Potts and sophomore Anthony Martinez each added two more points to the lead. But the Sea Kings rallied and although they never regained the lead, they got to within one point three more times and tied the game at 58-58 with 3:21 left to play.
The big shot of the game came with 1:32 remaining when Martinez scored the last of his 14 points as the shot clock expired. That made the score 61-58 but Mejia would answer back, then again after Potts hit two free throws with 24 seconds left.
“I give them credit; they came out and played great in the third quarter,” Becker said. “We didn’t do much to stop their momentum. In the fourth quarter, we hung on and played smart again. I like how this team plays smart.”
Any chance for the Sea Kings to tie the game was dashed when Clayton Ragsdale stepped on the end line under his basket with five seconds left. That came right after a timeout and Potts would seal the game with three more free throws. He would lead the Gladiators with 23 points but hit 14 of 15 free throws. He also had six rebounds.
“Davon is one of those kids who puts so much into it and gets so much out of it,” Becker said. “That’s the guy you want at the line. We were just fortunate that they were fouling our right guy in that situation.”
Senior Charles Nebo quietly had 11 points and seven rebounds while senior Ervin Ware added nine points, five assists and four steals
DIVISION IV-A BOYS
# 3 Pacific Hills 62, # 15 Valley Christian 37
A long season finally came to a halt for the Crusaders last Friday night as they couldn’t get anything going offensively in this second round game. The Crusaders were 10 of 44 from the field and were hoping for a closer game against the Bruins following a road victory two nights prior to begin the playoffs.
“It was nice to get one the other night at Desert; it was a fun win for the guys,” said Valley Christian head coach Bryan Branderhorst. “We knew tonight was tough. They have a lot of good players on their team; athletic all over the place. They’re used to winning a lot of games.”
V.C. took a brief 6-2 lead midway through the opening quarter on a pair of baskets from senior Dean Pollema and one from junior Jeff Hing. But the Crusaders would be held scoreless for the next 5:19 before those two scored consecutive baskets. V.C. trailed by 10 points with 2:52 left in the half but would not get the deficit into single digits the rest of the way.
“Our offensive execution wasn’t great tonight,” Branderhorst said. “We turned the ball over a lot in the second quarter and we missed a lot of shots that we were hoping to make. But that’s part of the game and we’re still proud of the guys. They fought really hard to the very end.”
It went from bad to worse in the third quarter where the hosts connected on one of 14 shots from the field and scored just five points. One of the bright spots in the game came from Pollema, who, along with senior Aaron Padilla, scored eight points but also had 10 rebounds. Four of them came in the first quarter and five more came in the third.
“He has a way of finding the ball,” Branderhorst said. “He has good hands and sees the ball come off the rim nice.”
Senior Chris Hunt added seven boards while junior Trevor Rodriguez scored all four of his points and had all four of his rebounds in the fourth quarter. The Crusaders, who finished in last place in the Olympic League and ends the season at 11-16, can see the light at the end of tunnel as far as next season is concerned. With the new league realignment beginning next season, V.C. will now face Los Angeles Baptist, Maranatha, Village Christian and Whittier Christian twice instead of Brentwood, Campbell Hall, Crossroads, Montclair Prep and Windward.
“I’ve never had a team where every single guy played every single game,” Branderhorst said. “That was the case this year. With that being said, a lot of guys got a lot of experience and we’ll bring back some guys next year.”
DIVISION II-A GIRLS
#3 Woodbridge 65, Norwalk 14
IRVINE-No one expected the Lady Lancers to do much against the third ranked team in the division and that’s exactly what happened last Thursday night. Norwalk trailed by five points just under two minutes left in the first quarter, then watched the Warriors go on a 30-6 run the rest of the half.
“Sometimes it’s hard to find a positive,” said Norwalk head coach Richard Drake. “But if you really had to pick one, it’s three years in a row that we actually made the playoffs. So, that is a positive for a program that really never went to the playoffs. The thing that we haven’t been able to do is get out of our own ways. We don’t really have great seasons to allow CIF to give us a better seeding.”
Norwalk (12-15) stumbled into the playoffs, going 4-8 in the Suburban League and finishing in fifth place. It did take a 2-0 lead 12 seconds into the game on a basket from senior and Loyola Marymount University signee Alexis Love. But Woodbridge scored the next 12 points and the rout was on. That would be the only field goal for Love as the Lady Lancers were led by junior Vanessa Ramirez, who scored all eight of her points in the first half and did not miss a shot from the field.
“I told her that was the best half she’s played all year,” Drake said. “If she can get that consistently next year, she’s going to have a great year. That’s all you can ask.”
Norwalk was blanked in the third quarter, missing on all seven field goals and four more shots from the charity stripe. In addition, Norwalk turned the ball over 33 times in the first three quarters before the game was played under running clock in the fourth quarter. Love grabbed seven rebounds and had two assists. Sara Lipton led everyone with 16 points while Sara McCutchan added 12 points, all in the first half.
“That’s a credit to how good they are, not necessarily how efficient we are,” Drake said. “We know we have a lot of work to do. But you’re playing a third seed. Mayfair is the 12th seed and we played them hard for a half. Even they would have a hard time with this team.”
DIVISION III-A GIRLS
# 4 Bonita 58, # 13 Gahr 36
Poor shooting in the second and third quarters spelled doom for the Gladiators last Saturday night at home as a two-point game early in the second quarter quickly turned into 14-point advantage for the Bearcats late in the stanza. Gahr would lead for much of the first quarter thanks to five points from junior Symone Brown. But following a basket from sophomore Alii Salone 30 seconds into the second quarter, Bonita scored the next 12 points and never looked back.
“To me it changed when I changed the guards,” said Gahr head coach Al Dorogusker. “Our guard play was just horrendous tonight. We didn’t hit any outside shots until when it didn’t really matter anymore.”
Gahr had no answers for the height that Bonita threw at the hosts. Madison Zylstra, who scored a game-high 18 points, stood at 5’ 9” while Brianna Kennedy at 6’ 2” and Taylor Anderson at 5’ 10” combined to score 21 more points. Adding more insult was 5’ 8” Lauren Hastings who came off the bench to score 11 points. Gahr has three starters that are at least 5’9”.
“I was disappointed in that we didn’t close up the middle,” Dorogusker said. “I was more concerned with the cuts down the middle and the lack of help down the middle. It was very, very disheartening because we rebounded well.”
Gahr, which finished the regular season at 15-13 and was an at-large representative from the San Gabriel Valley League, was outscored 15-4 in the third quarter and Bonita’s lead would expand to 50-25 midway through the fourth quarter. Brown was Gahr’s leading scorer with 15 points along with eight rebounds while freshman Jewelyn Sawyer had six points and 10 rebounds.

CIF SOCCER PLAYOFFS
Valley Christian boys knock out old but
future Olympic League rival in first round

By Loren Kopff

Valley Christian boys soccer head coach Chris Becher got a mini preview of what to expect for at least the next four years when his team hosted Whittier Christian last Thursday in a California Interscholastic Federation-Southern Section Division VI first round game. The Crusaders and Heralds, once Olympic League foes, will be reunited once again beginning next season and lasting until at least 2014.
But for now, V.C. has bragging rights over the Heralds following a 3-1 victory that sent the Crusaders into this past Tuesday’s second round game. V.C. had previously defeated the second place representatives from the Alpha League (1-0 on Jan. 5) but that didn’t completely mean Becher was breaking out his scouting report.
“Not because of them, but as the season went on, the high school season is so short and you make adjustments constantly,” Becher said. “The adjustments we did make was we took center [junior] midfielder Daniel Hernandez and put him wide. We also took [senior] Tanner Miller and put him at striker.”
Miller put V.C. in front within the first minute of the game when he followed up on a miss from junior striker Josh Sutherlin. The Crusaders could have made it 2-0 12 minutes later but Sutherlin’s miss on a breakaway was deflected. For the rest of the half, the Crusaders, who finished second in the Olympic League, were stymied by a tough Whittier Christian defense and it would remain that way in the early moments of the second half.
In the 57th minute, freshman midfielder Zac Way took a shot that was a foot over the net. Three minutes later, he headed a ball to junior midfielder Tyler Boer whose shot was just right of the post.
“It was kind of a blue collar goal but I’ll take it,” Becher said of Miller’s goal. “You think going up 1-0 is really good right away, but our guys got lazy. For the next 30 minutes, we couldn’t move the ball around.”
It wasn’t until the 67th minute when the Crusaders began to put the game away. Senior striker Jeriah Dunk, who at 5’ 5” is the shortest player on the field, out leaped Whittier Christian goalkeeper Ariel Ciribe and made it 2-0. Then 10 minutes later, Dunk received a throw in and fed a pass to Hernandez who iced the contest. The only blemish came when Marcus Rojas scored on a penalty kick just seconds before the referees whistled the game over.
V.C. would see its season end in the second round after falling to second ranked and defending CIF champion Mountain View 1-0 in overtime. The Crusaders (11-6-4) lose only three players to graduation and plan to return 76 percent of their goal production from this past season.
DIVISION III GIRLS SOCCER
Chadwick 1, Artesia 0
PALOS VERDES PENINSULA-The up and coming Pioneers battled with the co-champions of the Prep League for the majority of the second half but a goal in the 67th minute proved to be all the Dolphins needed. Artesia, the third place representatives from the Suburban League, took just four shots on goal in the entire game and had to withstand a barrage of golden opportunities from Chadwick that could have easily turned the game into a blowout.
“In the first half, we got lucky,” said Artesia head coach Octavio Marquez. “We started off pretty good, then we kind of fell into their game. They were much bigger and much quicker than us. Fortunately we were able to hold our own. In the second half, we stepped up and played much better than the first half.”
The best chance for the Pioneers (15-8-1) came in the 18th minute when freshman forward Carolina Ornelas received a pass from senior midfielder Martha Rodriguez but missed near the right post. Meanwhile, sophomore goalkeeper Itzel Gonzalez was keeping her team in the game with one gem of a save after another.
Four minutes after the Ornelas miss, Gonzalez punched away a corner kick taken by Channing Press. In the 27th minute, Jamie Soroka got loose on a breakaway but her shot barely sailed above the left corner. Two minutes later, Jayne Woolard took a free kick five yards from the penalty box but Gonzalez batted that shot down. In the 33rd minute, a shot from Press hit the cross bar and five minutes later, Gonzalez punched away yet another corner kick, this time taken from Woolard.
“Itzel is a phenomenal goalkeeper,” Marquez said. “She’s the backbone of our defense.”
The Dolphins continued to put the pressure on in the second half when Press had a shot in the 51st minute miss the cross bar by a foot and Soroka’s breakaway shot two minutes later punched away by Gonzalez. But the fourth corner kick of the game by Chadwick finally worked when Press sent a pass to Jessy Hale who leaped and placed a header in the upper left corner of the net.
Despite the loss, the Pioneers have finally put themselves in a position to contend for a Suburban League title rather than just contend for a playoff spot. Between the 2000-2001 and 2006-2007 seasons, the Pioneers won 36 games and never finished above fourth place. But in the past three seasons, Artesia has gone 35-27-5 and this past season edged league powerhouse Mayfair 2-1 in the biggest upset in league history. Also, the Pioneers went to the playoffs last season for the first time in school history and lost an overtime affair to Laguna Beach 2-1. Artesia also loses just four seniors to graduation and will return six of the top eight leading goal scorers.
“Our program is finally getting to a respectable level,” Marquez said. “Starting five freshmen in the back this year makes a difference. We’ve tried to work hard with these girls to be disciplined and get them to the level of the Mayfair’s and La Mirada’s.”