Another high school sports blog

End of winter sports season coincides with end of blogspot season

2009-03-16T14:48:00.000-07:00

Just as the last bit of the high school winter sports season clears the way for the onset of spring sports, the last entries on this particular blogspot clear the way for the onset of an Examiner.com LA high school sports blog. So before this blogspot fades into permanent oblivion on the Internet, here is a wrap of how our local athletic league faired in basketball and soccer championship playoffs state and regional.

The West Valley, so dominant in the L.A. city section playoffs, faded quickly for the most part, in state. Briefly:

The L.A. City Champion Chatsworth girls' soccer team lost 2-0 at San Clemente in the first round of the Southern California Regional Championships.
The city champion Chatsworth girls' hoops team lost in the quarterfinals of the CIF state Div. I championships, losing to Colony of Ontario in a SoCal bracket ultimately won by Long Beach Poly. Taft High, the city runner-up, lost to Stockdale of Bakersfield in the first round.
The city runner-up Taft High boys' team used two wins to get into the state Div. I semifinals before losing to No. 1-seeded M.L. King of Riverside. West Valley runner-up Cleveland High lost to King in the first round.

That left the unlikely El Camino Real boys' soccer team to be the region's only success story, post-city section. The Conquistadors, seeded No. 7 in the city section, managed not only to win the city title but the state title as well, with a 3-0 semifinal win over No. 1-seeded El Toro leading to a 2-0 championship game victory over Bullard of Fresno.

What a lucky coincidence

2009-03-09T15:36:00.000-07:00

The little six-team conference that I set out to cover with this blog happens to be the best sports league in the L.A. City Section. Or so the end of the basketball and soccer seasons would indicate. In particular, the girls basketball and girls soccer seasons ended with the Chatsworth High Chancellors--sitting over on DeSoto, just down the street from the social security office I need to go visit soon--winning section championship games, and they beat league rivals in both finals. Chatsworth beat Taft in the girls' hoops final Friday night, and they beat Granada Hills in the girls' soccer final on Saturday.

In boys' sports, the West Valley's dominance was more arguable. Though El Camino Real of Woodland Hills did win the boys' soccer title, Taft of Woodland Hills lost in the boys' hoops final to Westchester of the South Bay, preventing a West Valley sweep of the four sports.

Now they're all in the state championships, or in the case of soccer where there is no state title, in the SoCal regional championships. Brackets are posted at the cifstate.org Web site. In case you need help finding them ...
Girls hoops: 16-team bracket. Taft, a 10-seed, was eliminated in Round 1 by Stockdale-Bakersfield; Chatsworth, a 5-seed, advanced to a quarterfinal matchup against Colony-Ontario.
Boys hoops: 16-team bracket: Taft, a 4-seed, advanced to a quarterfinal matchup against No. 5 Compton-Dominguez.
Girls soccer: The L.A. Section gets no respect! Section champ Chatsworth is the No. 8 seed in an 8-team bracket. They get No. 1 San Clemente in the first round.
Boys soccer: El Camino Real gets a no. 5 seed in the 8-team bracket and a first-round game versus The Bishop's School out of La Jolla.

Update: Short & Sweet

2009-03-03T13:36:00.000-08:00

LA City Section Championship Games
Girls hoops, Div. I: No. 1 Chatsworth vs. No. 2 Taft, Friday night at 6 p.m., Galen Center
Boys hoops, Div. I: No. 1 Westchester vs. No. 3 Taft , Friday night at 8 p.m., Galen Center
Girls soccer, big schools: No. 3 Chatsworth vs. No. 5 Granada Hills, Saturday evening at 6 p.m., I dunno where
Boys soccer, large schools: No. 7 ECR vs. No. 4 Locke (Watts), Saturday afternoon at 3:30 p.m, Contreras Learning Center

Taft boys' soccer: 'Bye bye, Canoga High'

2009-02-26T11:24:00.000-08:00

No. 14 Taft 1, No. 6 Canoga Park 0

When the No. 14-seeded Taft High boys soccer team got an upset win to reach the Los Angeles City Section quarterfinals, the No. 6 Canoga High team may have thought it was in luck. After all, the Hunters did get themselves an extra home game in the process.

But in the end, it was Taft sending 200-plus home fans disappointed--the Torreadors advanced to Monday's semifinals with their second consecutive upset victory.

"I am surprised," midfielder Josue Navarro said. "But we earned it. We got a lucky goal, but then we played great defense and never gave up the lead."

"We've stepped up," said Taft right wing Oliquer Olivar. "The way we're playing now we think we can beat anybody."

The Torreadors' increasing confidence is shared by their coach Matt Kodama. Noting the success of West Valley League teams as a whole (Birmingham is the only one to be knocked out thus far), he said that while his team had a No. 14 seed, other schools knew to expect a tough game.

"These teams scouted us at the beginning of the season," Kodama said. "We've got 21 wins now. Nobody's looking past us; they scouted us, and we still beat them."

On the other sideline, Hunters head coach Jake Gwin lamented what he called a missed opportunity. Senior stopper Luis Martinez was equally bummed out.

"We had opportunities, we just didn't finish," said Martinez. "That's soccer; one ball gets behind you at the beginning of the game and that's it."

While Canoga Park players like Martinez now turn their attention toward the club season (which starts in a couple of weeks), Taft has its semifinal match Monday--against crosstown rival El Camino Real. By the time of Kodama's postgame celebration, word had already reached the sideline that El Camino awaited in the semi.

"It doesn't really matter who we play," Olivar said. "As long as we do what we need to do to get to the championship."

So here's your schedule for this weekend (Feb. 26 - Mar. 2):
Thursday, Boys soccer quarterfinals: No. 14 Taft 1, No., 6 Canoga Park 0; No. 7 ECR 3, No. 2 San Fernando 2
Friday, Girls hoops semis: No. 4 Fairfax at No. 1 Chatsworth; No. 3 Washington at No. 2 Taft. Games at 7 p.m.
Saturday, Boys hoops semis: No. 3 Taft vs. No. 2 Fairfax, No. 4 Cleveland vs. No. 1 Westchester. Games at Galen Center, noon and 2 p.m.
Monday, Girls soccer semis: No. 3 Chatsworth at No. 2 San Pedro, No. 5 Granada Hills at No. 1 ECR. Games at 3 p.m.
Monday, Boys soccer semis: No. 14 Taft at No. 7 ECR, 3 p.m. (Other semi TBD)

Next weekend's finals (March 6-7)
Friday night, Girls hoops finals--at Galen Center, 6 p.m.
Saturday, Boys soccer final--at Contreras, 3:30 p.m.
Saturday, Girls soccer final--6 p.m.
Saturday, Boys hoops final--at Galen Center, 8 p.m.

Here's secondhand summaries on how the other three sports' playoffs have progressed:

Boys hoops: Everything going according to seed, which means that both No. 3 Taft and No. 4 Cleveland are still in it. Those games are at the Galen Center in the USC area, at noon and 2 p.m. Eliminated: No. 12 Birmingham (in the first round), and in Divsion II, No. 5 ECR and No. 7 Granada Hills (both ousted in the quarterfinals).

Girls hoops: Also going according to seed ... which means that No. 1 Chatsworth and No. 2 Taft host semifinals this Friday night. No surprise that Granada Hills and Birmingham went out in the first round. Also, No. 6 ECR fell to No. 3 Washington in the quarterfinals.

Girls soccer: A 1-0 overtime loss by No. 7 Taft in yesterday's quarterfinals was the only thing that kept the West Valley conference from sending four teams to the semifinals, which take place Monday. No. 2 San Pedro (the winner over Taft) will host no. 3 Chatsworth, while in the other semifinal No. 1 ECR hosts No. 5 Granada Hills.

Playoff brackets!

2009-02-18T12:23:00.001-08:00

The Los Angeles Section playoffs will be getting under way this week. Brackets can be viewed at the cif-la.org Web site. I am new to the L.A. Section, so I'm not yet clear on how they determine which schools are Division I and which are Division II. The Division I-Division II split is for basketball and not for soccer (which divides its playoff brackets into big and small schools) and I believe it is agreed-upon before the season starts--but I'm not sure how.

I just left a message at the section office and will post an update with proper explanation when I get it. I assume that only Div. I section winners are eligible for the SoCal playoffs and state championships. If you, the reader, has a proper explanation, I'd love to read about it in what would be this blog's first comment.

Until then, summing up the West Valley involvement in said playoffs, one sport at a time:

Boys hoops: The top three teams are in the Division I bracket, while the 4 and 5 teams are in the Division II bracket. Taft was 10-0, Cleveland 8-2, and Birmingham 6-4, so it's not surprising that they're seeded in that order in the 16-team Div. I bracket. But when I tell you that they are seeded 3, 4 and 12 in a 16-team field, you might be surprised that Cleveland gets seeded so much closer to Taft than they are to Birmingham. The advantage of that high seed goes out the window with the fact that Cleveland has to play on the road in the first round anyway. Taft hosts Gardena, Cleveland plays at Van Nuys, and Birmingham plays at Sylmar. Westchester and Fairfax are the respective 1 and 2 seeds ahead of Taft and Cleveland. AS FOR THE DIVISION II FIELD, El Camino Real and Granada Hills are both not only in the playoffs, but they also have first-round byes. ECR is seeded No. 5 and Granada Hills No. 7 in the 24-team field; their opponents will be determined in the play-in round. Chatsworth did not make the playoffs.
Girls hoops: The West Valley dominates the Division I bracket, with Chatsworth and Taft seeded 1 and 2 (respectively) and with five of the league's six teams making the Div. I playoffs. While those two teams should easily win their playoff openers Wednesday, No. 6 seed ECR faces a tougher matchup in Venice. Granada Hills and Birmingham figure to get swept out of the playoffs in their first round games, with the Highlanders at No. 5 Carson and with Birmingham at No. 3 Washington.
Boys soccer: Oh my god, a 32-team bracket. I've never seen that before. League champ Birmingham gets a No. 3 seed and a home opener against Southgate. ECR gets a No. 7 seed and hosts Santee. Taft gets a No. 14 seed and a home game against No. 19 Panorama. The West Valley's bottom three teams didn't make the playoffs. NOTE: In the 16-team small-school bracket, Northridge Academy is the No. 4 seed. As a CSUN student I might have to check out that game, even though my stated purpose here is to cover the West Valley conference. I just can't help but be a little curious about that Northridge Academy.
Girls soccer: ECR must have played a brutal nonconference schedule and must have a helluva reputation, because despite a 9-7-3 record (according to maxpreps) the Conquistadors are the No. 1 seed in this 32-team bracket. And Chatsworth is No. 3. The West Valley is VERY highly-regarded: Granada Hills is No. 5, Taft is No. 7 and Cleveland is No. 8. Last-place Birmingham is No. 18. The six above-listed teams' respective opponents are: San Fernando, Fairfax, Carson, Verdugo Hills, West Adams and Manual Arts.

Now, how about a school-by-school perspective. This is how the schools faired athletically, with each school's playoff seeds listed in the reverse order described above. In other words, let's list each school, and then the playoff seed that school earned in girls soccer, then boys soccer, then girls hoops, and then boys hoops. Note that NP = no playoffs.

Taft: 7, 14, 2, 3
ECR: 1, 7, 6, II-5
Birmingham: 18, 3, 14, 12
Chatsworth: 3, NP, 1, NP
Granada Hills: 5, NP, 12, II-7
Cleveland: 8, NP, NP, 4

So if you have a Division II playoff berth equal to 16 + the listed seed, and have the NPs count as say 30, then you could rank the school's winter programs like so: Taft (26), ECR (35), Birmingham (47), Chatsworth (64), Granada Hills (70), Cleveland (72). Note that Taft is especially awesome at both genders of basketball, while Chatsworth is particularly awesome at girls' sports.

End of West Valley Basketball/Soccer regular seasons

2009-02-18T11:57:00.000-08:00

Maybe one day there will be a West Valley sports Web site that gives you updated standings and statistics on a day-to-day basis. The model for this Web site would be the Northern California site marinhoops.com, which covers one nine-team athletic league (in Marin County, 20 miles north of San Francisco) and has box scores posted on the Internet hours after the games are played. Its reliability and detail are amazing.

At the moment, I don't think I bring enough on-line savvy to the table to put together something like that, and so I'm abandoning my standings updates (which I composed simply by visiting maxpreps and, to a lesser extent, the Daily News and copying the information into my blogspot) to focus on writing features or columns. I enjoy typing up things like standings and schedules, but I can often get lost in such activities, ignoring more creative endeavors in the process.

Anyway, I'll sum up my latest visit to the above-mentioned Web sites, which I'm making only to get myself current.

In boys hoops, Taft finished with two wins by a combined 66 points to finish the league season undefeated. Cleveland finished 8-2 and Birmingham 6-4; El Camino Real (3-7), Granada Hills (2-8) and Chatsworth (1-9) round out the league.
In girls hoops, Taft (8-2) beat ECR (7-3) to take second place in the conference, while Chatsworth (9-1) finished in first. Getting repeatedly beaten by those three schools were Granada Hills (3-7), Birmingham (2-8) and Cleveland (1-9).
In boys soccer, maxpreps says Birmingham (8-1-1) won out to hang on to its half-game lead over ECR (7-1-2) for the conference title. After that came Taft (6-4), Chatsworth (2-5-2), Granada Hills (2-8) and Cleveland (1-7-1).
Might want to check back with the Daily News, as their guy Erik Boal has covered the hell out of girls soccer and they ought to have a better read on this. Also maxpreps tends to miss a soccer game here and there. Given what I've read of the two combined, I think the standings ought to read, from top to bottom: ECR (6-1-3), Chatsworth (5-2-3), Granada Hills (4-2-4), Taft (4-3-3), and then Cleveland and Birmingham in I'm not sure what order.

So them's your standings. Congrats to league champions. Spring sports are just around the corner; for now, it's playoff time.

LADY CAVS CELEBRATE FIRST WIN: CLEVELAND 32, GRANADA HILLS 31

2009-02-06T22:08:00.001-08:00

If the final shot had gone in, it would have seemed all so familiar to the Cleveland High girls basketball team. They had lost in late and agonizing fashion so many times before.
But the opposing team’s last-second shot missed, and so instead, the Cavs celebrated their first league win of the season, a 32-31 nail-biter at Granada Hills.
“I’m tired, and happy that working hard paid of for us,” said Jade Denson, the Cleveland senior point guard who scored 6 of her team-leading 11 points in the fourth quarter—accounting for her team’s entire output in that quarter. “As long as we stay calm and make strong decisions, we can hang on in these close games.”
It got especially close in the final moments. With neither team scoring much early, Cleveland’s lead seemed safe even though it never reac hed double-digits. But Granada Hills closed to within a point in the final two minutes, only to miss shots on their final possessions that would have given them the game.
An errant Cleveland inbounds pass gave Granada Hills the ball with five seconds left, and head coach Lou Cicciari used the team’s final timeout to diagram what he must have hoped would be the game-winning play.
But Jaclyn Tomita’s set shot from the right wing was off the mark, and the buzzer sounded, setting off the Cleveland celebration. Screaming and hugging one another, Denson and her Cav teammates left the court in style.
“Last year our (El Camino) game was like this,” said junior forward Pristine Shin, who finished with 8 points. “It’s exciting. I thought hat last shot (by Tomita) was a bit off, but I was definitely praying.”
Freshman guard Mariah Howard, who also scored 8 points, agreed with that sentiment.
“That was the longest five seconds of my life,” she said.
Granada Hills took a 26-20 lead into the fourth quarter, thanks to a defense that shut out all but two players on Granada Hills’ roster. Power forward Xava Grooms had 11 points and Tomita had 9, and that was it for the Highlanders.
But Ashley Samson came off the bench and sparked the Highlander rally, scoring all 7 of her points in the fourth quarter. Still, the Cavaliers seemed always able to maintain a three-or-four-point buffer zone until, with 1:30 left in the game, Granada Hills freshman Cassidy Wong nailed a 3-pointer from the right wing to make it 32-31.
The crowd went crazy, and so did the Granada Hills defense, putting pressure on Cleveland and forcing turnover after turnover. And yet the Highlanders were unable to capitalize on the opportunities their defense created. When Grooms missed the front end of a one-on-one with 45 seconds left, Cleveland took possession and looked to ice the game.
The Cavs were able to use up most of the 30-second shot clock, but Shin’s runner missed at about the 15-second mark, and then Cleveland forward Najia Lodin’s putback was way off the mark. Grooms came down with the next rebound at the 10-second mark, and she quickly drove coast-to-coast in her attempt to give her team the lead.
Grooms’ layup attempt drew contact from the defender, but it also drew a traveling call from the ref. Cleveland attempted to inbound the ball under its own basket with 6 seconds left, but the inbounds pass was tipped out of bounds by a Cleveland player, setting up Tomita’s last-second attempt with 5 seconds left.
Grooms rebounded Tomita’s miss and her rebound put-back was good, but by the time she got it off the final buzzer had already sounded.
“I tried to get it off,” said Grooms, who finished with a game-high 12 points. “We could’ve done better shooting throughout the game. But it’s always fun to play close games like this, whether you win or lose.”
Laney Ming, the Highlanders’ starting point guard who fouled out late in the third quarter, agreed with her teammate.
“I think we really stepped it up in the end, and I’m proud of the effort,” Ming said. “It wasn’t like a shameful loss; it was a well-fought loss.”
All the better, then, that Cleveland should avoid it—as the Cavs knew all about well-fought losses.
“It’s been a challenging season,” Cleveland head coach Carol Holton said. “We’ve played pretty close matches against Granada Hills and Birmingham. But this is our first league win.”
The Cavs have two games left in the season, so they hope their first win isn’t also their last. Asked if they might win one more, Denson was emphatic in her response.
“We don’t want to win just one,” she said. “We need to take both.”

CLEVELAND 32, GRANADA HILLS 31
Cleveland------7---10---9---6-----32
Granada Hills—5---6---9---11----31
Cleveland—Vanegas 0 0-0 0; Shin 3 2-8 8; Hernandez 1 0-0 3; Pressley 0 0-0 0; Howard 3 1-4 8; Denson 3 4-6 11; Lodin 1 0-0 2; Totals 11 7-18 32.
Granada Hills— Samson 1 4-4 7; Ming 0 0-0 0; Tomita 3 0-0 9; Shields 0 0-0 0; Cebulak 0 0-0 0; Boulos 0 0-0 0; Wong 1 0-0 3; Villegas 0 0-0 0; Grooms 3 6-11 12; Totals 8 10-15 31.
Three-pointers—Cleveland 3 (Hernandez, Howard, Denson); Granada Hills 5 (Tomita 3, Samson, Wong).
Technical fouls—none.
Fouled out—Ming.

Site changes/Mission statement

2009-02-05T11:37:00.001-08:00

Happy Thursday afternoon, people. So, stating the obvious: this is a Web site that aims to cover local high school sports. However, that's like having a Web site that covers the United Sates--it's not a very informative description, because it's too vague. So here's some specifics:

The site is going to focus on the West Valley League in the L.A. Section. Why? Because I just moved to Woodland Hills, and when I looked up Woodland Hills on wikipedia before I moved here, I learned that the two big schools were Taft and El Camino Real. Both of those schools play in the West Valley league. I've also learned that the other schools in the West Valley League are convenient for me to cover. I commute from Woodland Hills to Northridge for school, and all six West Valley schools are located somewhere around that commute.

That's not to say I'll ignore non-West Valley schools entirely. I already went out to see the Chaminade girls basketball team, and I might go out to see the boys soon as well. But with boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer and wrestling all going on at once, I'm going to have my work cut out for me just trying to keep up with this one six-team conference. It just took me two hours to compile these standings and schedules, and I'm not going to spend another two hours doing the Valley Mission League, or the Southern Section's Mission League for that matter. The Daily News will have to scratch those itches for you.

Check back for updates to the standings and schedules. Maybe I'll see you at the games on Friday.

Taft girls soccer keeps rolling: Taft 2, Granada Hills 1

2009-02-04T09:12:00.000-08:00

In a crowded field atop the West Valley League’s girls soccer standings, featuring three-or-four-way ties for first, the play was bound to get competitive. Which is why Granada Hills head coach Don Ledesma said,
“This is the toughest league. All six of us are gonna bang heads all through league play.”
That was the literal truth on Tuesday, as Granada Hills dropped out of what might have been a four-way tie for first place. The visiting Taft High defense helped keep a physical second half scoreless, allowing the Torreadors to finish a 2-1 victory.
The defensive effort was led in part by Ani Eishoei, who several times sacrificed her body—and her head—to keep the Highlanders from tying the score.
One defensive head ball by Eishoei thwarted a header attempt by Granada forward Melissa Fernandez—with the two players’ heads colliding on the play. Actually it was Fernandez’s nose that took the brunt of the collision; she held an ice pack to it at the end of the game.
“She’s an amazing player,” Eishoei said of Fernandez, happy to have stopped her rival. “She would’ve scored if I hadn’t gone up for that.”
“It’s unfortunate; we didn’t deserve to lose,” Fernandez said, noting her team’s high number of shots on goal relative to the Torreadors. “I really don’t understand how it happened.”
It happened because though the Highlanders outshot the Torreadors and appeared to control the ball for a longer period of time, it was visiting Taft that converted more of its opportunities—starting in the game’s opening moments, when Karina Flores scored an unassisted goal just inside the left post.
Fernandez struck back with a header off of a Chelsea Johnson cornerkick midway through the first half to tie it at 1-1 (“I try to kick it to her side, because she can almost always score it,” Johnson said of Fernandez), but Taft responded right away, with Briana Behrad scoring the go-ahead goal.
The going continues to be tough for both teams in the coming week. Taft (17-1-5, 4-1-2) may have broken its tie with Granada Hills, but it remains tied with El Camino Real (7-7-2, 4-1-2) and perhaps also with Chatsworth (1-1-2 on maxpreps, but with three scores unreported).
Granada Hills (13-8-2, 3-2-2) falls into second place, and faces ECR on Thursday, while Taft takes on Chatsworth. Coaches on both sides were already looking ahead.
“We consider this sort of a hell week,” Ledesma said. “To play Taft and (El Camino) in the same week. It’s going to come down to who wants it the most, and who finishes their opportunities.”
“This was not an A game,” Taft coach Jarrett Gold told his girls on the other sideline. “But it was a great job by the defense: you guys saved us a million times. Now on Thursday, we’ve got to come out tough. It’s probably going to be raining, and they’re going to want to beat us.”
Gold spoke of how his team is experiencing a lot of progress this year. He said that Tuesday was the Torreadors’ first win over Granada Hills in nine years; they got their first win over Chatsworth in nine years earlier in the season. Thus, the expectation that Chatsworth will be motivated to even that score.
Still, Taft means to answer with the toughness that it showed on defense on Tuesday.
“You have to have a lot of confidence in your defense,” Taft goalie Cindy Godina said. “It was a pretty hard game, but it’s a pretty proud moment (to beat Granada Hills for the first time in nine years).”

Torreadors look to start new win streak--Taft 67, Granada Hills 45

2009-01-30T22:20:00.000-08:00

It didn’t take the Taft High girls basketball team long to rebound from Wednesday’s one-point loss to crosstown rival El Camino Real. The Torreadors bounced back in a big way on Friday, wiping out conference rival Granada Hills at home, providing Taft with a much-needed confidence boost going into Saturday’s game at Fairfax.
“We needed a big win after the loss to El Camino,” said Skyy Lewis, one of six Taft players to score eight points or more against Granada Hills. “And we wanted to get ready for Fairfax on Saturday.”
Asked if the team was feeling better after the loss, Lewis’ teammate Annessa De la Cruz wasn’t so sure.
“A little,” said De La Cruz, who scored a game-high 13. “It’s good to get a win, but it’s bittersweet, because we’re coming off that upset loss.”
To hear De La Cruz tell it, the Torreadors (11-6, 4-1 Mission League) don’t want to do any more losing.
“We expect to win all our games,” De La Cruz said. “Beating Fairfax is important to give us a good seed in the (Los Angeles Section) playoffs; this game’s vital to get that seed.”
The Fairfax game won’t be easy for Taft, but then they had no way of knowing their win over Granada Hills would be easy, until they found themselves up 35-14 in the second quarter. The lead widened to 62-28 after three quarters before Taft emptied its bench in the final quarter.
Granada Hills coach Lou Cicciari was a little surprised himself. His team had lost to Taft by 29 earlier in the season, but the Highlanders (8-13, 1-4) had also come within three points of beating El Camino Real. So the blowout loss was a little tough to deal with.
“We’re a young team, so we have to take our time and play our tempo,” Cicciari said. “(Taft is) very athletic and they like to play up tempo. Our girls can’t play their style; we have to play our style.”
Granada Hills was led by forward Xava Grooms’ 13 points; Jaclyn Tomita added 8 and Fernanda Villegas scored 7 for the Highlanders.
“This league is the toughest in the city section,” Cicciari added. “Any team can beat any team, but if you don’t play your best, a team can wipe the floor with you like this.”
While Granada Hills now takes a few days off before getting back in action Wednesday (at Chatsworth), the Torreadors get right back to work against Fairfax. And according to Joy Hubbard, who scored 9 for Taft, the El Camino game is now a little bit more distant of a memory.
“We’ll have it in our mind,” Hubbard said, noting that her team came back strong from the loss. “When we come back, we go hard. (The El Camino loss) is only going to motivate us.”

TAFT 67, GRANADA HILLS 45
Gran. Hills 12 7 9 17 45
Taft 19 21 22 5 67
Granada Hills—Ming 1 0-0 3; Tomita 3 0-0 8; Shields 1 2-4 5; Yoshida 2 0-0 4; Wong 1 1-2 3; Villegas 3 0-0 7; Levine 1 0-0 2; Grooms 5 3-9 13; Totals 17 6-15 45.
Taft—Tyler 0 1-2 1; Kolani 3 0-0 8; Burton 1 0-0 2; De La Cruz 5 3-4 13; Hampton 4 1-1 9; Lewis 2 4-4 8; Sorrells 0 0-0 0; Hubbard 2 4-4 9; Drips 0 0-0 0; Smythe 2 0-0 4; Newell 2 0-0 5; Haynes 3 2-3 8; Gideon 0 0-0 0; Brown 0 0-0 0; Totals 24 15-18 67.
Three-pointers—Granada Hills 5 (Tomita 2, Ming, Shields, Villegas); Taft 4 (Kolani 2, Hubbard, Newell).
Fouled out—None.

Eagles nicked by the Nicoles: Harvard-Westlake 58, Chaminade 45

2009-01-29T21:34:00.000-08:00

The Harvard-Westlake girls basketball team has made one undefeated trip through the Mission League already this season. On Thursday, the Wolverines took their first step toward a second undefeated tour through the league--although the tour may be more difficult this time around.
Chaminade of West Hills was the first team to get charged up for a rematch against the league leaders. The Eagles (8-12, 2-4 ML) bounced back from a 35-point loss to Harvard-Westlake three weeks ago and kept Thursday's game close throughout the first half, before ultimately falling 58-45.
"We didn't play our best," Harvard-Westlake point guard Nicole Nesbit said after her team's latest win. "We let them set the tone early on. We have to learn to set the tone, to make them play our tempo instead of playing their tempo."
If the Wolverines (14-6, 6-0) started slow in the first half, they looked to make up for it quickly in the second half, outscoring Chaminade 19-9 in the third quarter to take a 46-33 lead. Nicole Hung led the way, scoring 8 of her team-high 19 points in the quarter.
Like Nesbit, who referred to the contest as a "learning experience," Hung said that Harvard-Westlake benefitted from Thursday night's challenge.
"Normally, we get more transition points," Hung said. "To Chaminade's credit, they did a much better job getting back on defense. That forced us to execute our offense, and we got a lot more scoring from our half court."
While the Wolverines were led by the two Nicoles (Nesbit, who scored 10, and Hung), head coach Melissa Hearlihy's team also attacked the Eagles using depth.
"What helps us is we have a lot of offensive weapons," the head coach said.
Chaminade almost matched Harvard-Westlake weapon for weapon in the first half, with Alex Yates scoring 8 first-half points and Jenny Yu coming off the bench with 5, including a three-pointer during a second-quarter spurt that helped the Eagles come back from a 23-13 deficit. Chaminade's 11-4 run made it 27-24 at halftime.
But in the second half, the Wolverines changed their full-court press from zone to man-to-man, and the Eagles struggled to handle the pressure. As a result, the offense became a one-woman show, with Erin Dautremont scoring 16 of the team's 21 second-half points.
"It was a tough loss," said Dautremont, who finished with a game-high 21 overall. "That was probably one of the best games we've had. We're a young team, and now we're stepping it up a bit. But we're not quite there yet."
A low-post player normally, Dautremont was forced to assume some ball-handling responsibilities against the Harvard-Westlake press, in part because the Eagles continue to be without senior point guard Danielle Nakashima.
Injuries have also left head coach Kelli DiMuro's team without the services of standout freshman Anne Tarakchian. Partly as a result, the young team has been streaky, using a four-game win streak to jump out to a 6-5 early season mark before losing 7 of 9 more recently. The Eagles next head to Mission Hills to face Alemany on Tuesday.
Newcomers have made a more immediate impact at Harvard-Westlake. On Thursday, freshman Leslie Schuman scored 7 points, including 5 in the crucial third quarter. Junior teammate Skylar Tsuitsui knew how Schuman must have felt, breaking through offensively. A newcomer in her own right, Tsuitsui also had to become part of the mix on this year's Harvard-Westlake team after transferring over the offseason from Granada Hills.
"At the beginning of the season, during practices, we didn't really mix well," Tsuitsui said. But now, she feels like she's become very much a part of the smoothe operation at Harvard-Westlake. Things came together, just as they did Thursday night.
"At first we weren't ready (when the game started)," she said. "Then in the second half our intensity increased. We pulled together."
Harvard-Westlake plays next at Louisville-Woodland Hills on Tuesday.

HARVARD-WESTLAKE 58, CHAMINADE 45
Harv.-W. 15 12 19 12 58
Chaminade 11 13 9 12 45
Harvard-Westlake--Haydel 3 0-0 6; Nesbit 5 0-0 10; Wicks 0 0-0 0; King 4 1-2 9; Tsuitsui 2 1-2 5; Hung 8 3-4 19; Schuman 3 1-3 7; Lee 0 0-0 0; Horowitz 1 0-0 2; Totals 26 6-11 58.
Chaminade--Conroy 0 0-0 0; Geronimo 0 0-0 0; Yu 2 0-0 5; Jackson 1 0-0 2; Newman 1 3-4 5; Salazar 0 4-4 4; Papenbrook 0 0-0 0; Yates 4 0-0 8; Dautremont 7 7-8 21; Totals 15 14-16 45.
Three-pointers--HW 0, CH 1 (Yu).
Technical fouls--None.
Fouled out--None.

Friday night options in Woodland Hills

2009-01-29T21:32:00.001-08:00

Spending some time on Maxpreps trying to ascertain the local sports happenings on a Friday night. My options (according to Maxpreps) appear to be ...

Two early afternoon girls' hoops games (both 2:30 p.m. start times):
* Taft girls' hoops hosts Granda Hills. Taft is 10-6, 3-1 West Valley League. Granda Hills is 8-12, 1-3. Taft is in third place, Granada Hills is in fourth.
* El Camino Real girls' hoops is at Cleveland-Reseda. Cleveland is a not-so-good 6-17, 0-4 in West Valley; ECR is 13-6, 4-1.

One late afternoon soccer game:
Chaminade girls' soccer hosts Alemany at 5 p.m. The Chaminade girls are 18-2 this season, while Alemany is listed as being like 3-5. That's a huge assymetry in games played, likely meaning that the Alemany coach either a) didn't schedule nonconference games; or b) hasn't reported the scores to any of the team's games. Anyway, the Chaminade girls' soccer team appears to be pretty good, although I believe both of its losses are in league; the team's league record is something like 3-2.

Three late afternoon boys' basketball games
* ECR (13-8, 2-2) hosts Cleveland (13-6, 2-1). This has a 5:30 p.m. start.
* Taft (17-2, 4-0) is at Granada Hills (13-7, 0-4). This starts at 7 p.m.
* Chaminade (13-8, 4-4 Mission League) is at Alemany-Mission Hills (7-15, 2-7) at 7 p.m. It's an 18-mile drive. The cellar-dwelling Chaminade boys' soccer team is at Alemany as well on Friday; the host Warriors' record is only slightly better.

Mascots (this, along with the school addresses listed below, is information sports writers need to know)--

Taft: Torreadors
ECR: Conquistadors
Chaminade: Eagles (7500 Chaminade)
Cleveland: Cavaliers (8140 Vanalden)
Granda Hills: Highlanders (10535 Zelzah)
Alemany: Warriors (11111 N. Alemany)