Redondo hoops squad overcomes Crossroads, Shareef O’Neal in a CIF thriller
Redondo senior Jailen Moore scored a team-high 21 points to lead the Sea Hawks to a first-round win in the Open Division Consolation Bracket. Photo
Jailen Moore had already swished in five three-pointers, but when the Redondo senior guard threw up a wild shot that banked in for yet another trifecta mid-way through the third quarter he got that special feeling that he was in the zone.
“I figured it was my night, so I might as well keep going for it,” Moore said moments after his 21-point outburst helped Redondo edge past Crossroads 63-61 Tuesday night in a thriller that went down to the final shot.
For the first time in his two years at Redondo, the 6-foot-2 Moore outscored the Sea Hawks star, 6-foot-3 wing man Ryse Williams, who finished with 19 points. But despite Moore’s heroics, it was Williams, as usual, who hit the most important shot of the first round game of the consolation bracket in the CIF Southern Section Open Division.
That shot came with 10 seconds left, the score tied at 61-61, and everyone in the packed gym standing and screaming as Redondo in-bounded the ball. After the ball whipped around the perimeter, Williams worked his way to the top of the key and called for the ball. He faked left, took one dribble right, and pulled up from the foul line for a sweet jumper that found nothing but net.
“The bench was yelling for me to take it to the bucket, but my defender bit and I found myself wide open,” Williams said. “So I took the shot and I was lucky enough that it went in.”
All the buzz before the game was about Shareef O’Neal, the 6-foot-10 Crossroads junior center whose father is Shaquille O’Neal. And O’Neal lived up to the pre-game billing, leading the Road Runners in scoring with 24 points that featured several ferocious dunks. But surprisingly most of his points came on outside shots, as he drilled three three-pointers and displayed a soft shooting touch that, combined with his massive body, makes him a strong Division 1 college prospect.
After Williams’ shot that gave the Sea Hawks a 63-61 lead there were still 10 seconds left on the game clock. But Crossroads wasted most of that precious time dribbling the ball up the court before calling timeout with three and a half seconds left. Following yet another time out, they finally in-bounded the ball. But instead of sending O’Neal under the hoop where everyone was expecting a lob, O’Neal drifted out towards the mid-court line where he finally got the ball but could do little more than dribble around while Redondo defenders swiped at him from every direction. The buzzer sounded without the Road Runners getting off a shot and Redondo sprinted off the court knowing it was fortunate their tallest player, 6-foot-7 human toothpick Quinn Collins, hadn’t been forced to deal with O’Neal’s size, strength and leaping ability under the hoop.
“I was amazed they didn’t throw him a lob,” Redondo’s interim head coach Vic Martin said. “Amazed and relieved.”
The always demonstrative Martin was up and down off the bench all night, as Redondo continually threatened to pull away but repeatedly gave all or most its lead back to a Crossroads team that relied almost exclusively on O’Neal and 6-foot-8 senior forward Ira Lee, the Arizona-bound senior who finished with 19 points.
The Sea Hawks raced out to an 11-4 lead as Moore scorched the nets for three quick treys. But Crossroads fought back to grab an 18-15 lead on three consecutive get-out-of-my-way O’Neal dunks. Williams answered with a three-pointer at the buzzer to tie it at 18-18 at the end of the first quarter. The half ended with the Hawks leading 32-29 after Williams was fouled on a three pointer at the buzzer and calmly drilled all three foul shots.
Redondo came out roaring in the third quarter, and Moore’s banked-in three-pointer gave the Hawks a 41-29 lead. But once again Crossroads fought back to pull within 2 at 46-44 and the third quarter ended with a 49-44 Sea Hawk lead.
The fourth quarter was a fight to the finish, a finish that Williams grabbed with his last-second shot, a shot that might not have been possible if the Road Runners hadn’t been paying so much attention to Moore.
“We always tell Jailen that he has to take the open shots he gets because people are paying so much attention to Ryse,” Martin said with a chuckle. “But on that last shot it was just the opposite: Ryse got open because Jailon was so hot tonight.”
Redondo will host Santa Margarita Friday night at 7 p.m. in the second round of the consolation bracket.
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