Redondo Union hoops squad runs winning streak to 16, seizes Bay League, with victory over Peninsula
Ryse Williams led Redondo with 24 points. File photo
The Bay League showdown turned into a Bay League slowdown.
The good news for the Peninsula Panthers in Tuesday night’s fight for the Bay League title: they held the high flying Redondo Sea Hawks to a measly 19 points in the first half. The bad news: they only scored a mind-boggling 15 points themselves.
“We came out cold and stayed cold,” said Peninsula Coach Ryan Quinlan. “We had plenty of good looks, but just couldn’t knock them down with any consistency.”
The offensive ineptitude by both sides continued right into the second half as Redondo finished with a 52-42 victory that clinched a fifth straight league title and ran its winning streak to 16 games.
“It was an ugly game, but I’ll take an ugly win over an ugly loss any day of the week,” Redondo Interim Head Coach Vic Martin said. “They don’t ask how you won, just if you won or lost.”
The loss was particularly painful for Peninsula, which caught Redondo on an off night, a night when the Sea Hawks were ripe to be beaten. The problem was that Peninsula was missing two of its three best players: ultra-talented 5-foot-10 sophomore guard Wony’a Singleton and 6-foot-4 senior forward Jordan Gazdik. Gazdik sat out because of a concussion, and Singleton did not play because of a “coach’s decision.”
Quinlan said he did not want to go into the details of why he wouldn’t allow Singleton to play, but he expressed confidence that the budding star will learn from the episode and become a better teammate and player.
“He’ll play in college if he just keeps working at it,” Quinlan said. “He’s very talented.”
The best player on the court Tuesday night was Ryse Williams, the 6-foot-3 Redondo senior wing who has committed to play next year at Loyola Marymount, where he will join former Redondo Coach Reggie Morris, who now works as a Loyola assistant coach.
Indeed, Williams came to the rescue when Redondo fell behind 10-7 after one quarter of play. The sharp-shooter had spent the first quarter trying to get his teammates involved in the offense, but ultimately, after the Sea Hawk’s worst quarter of the season, he had to do the heavy lifting himself.
Typically Williams is a catch-and-shoot guy who prefers to come off screens, receive the ball and launch his sweet shot. But on this night the Sea Hawk offense was so dysfunctional that he had to resort to a lot of isolation plays where he either bulldozed his way to the bucket or backed down his defender before turning and shooting over him.
He got fouled on his first drive of the second quarter and hit both foul shots to cut the lead to 10-9. Then he had a nifty finish to another power drive to give Redondo its first lead at 11-10. With Redondo clinging to a 17-15 lead as the half neared an end, he finished off yet another get-out-of-my-way drive to give the Hawks a little breathing room at 19-15. And as if to drive home his importance to the team, when a Peninsula player crashed to floor and left a big wet mark shortly before the halftime buzzer, it was Williams who got a towel and wiped up the sweat to make the floor safe again.
“He does it all for us,” Martin said with a chuckle.
As the third quarter began Peninsula showed its fighting spirit when 6-foot-5 center Blake Godbold drilled a 15-foot jumper to cut the lead to two, but Williams answered with a corner three-pointer to pump the Redondo lead up to 22-17, a lead it would never relinquish.
Late in the third quarter Peninsula did draw to within two points when Godbold nailed a corner three, but Williams immediately answered with two foul-line jumpers to pump the lead back to 36-30. Godbold was fouled attempting another corner trey, but hit only one foul shot and missed two. Still, the Peninsula side of the gym roared when Dominic Blanco stole the in-bounds pass and flipped it in as the buzzer sounded, cutting the lead to 36-33 at the end of three quarters.
“Our kids fought hard,” Quinlan said. “They’re a very competitive group.”
But the fourth quarter was all Redondo, and both teams sent in subs when the Sea Hawk lead grew to 50-38. Williams finished with 24 points, and no one else scored in double figures for Redondo. Godbold tallied 15 points and 10 rebounds for Peninsula, while senior guard Tyler Hazard chipped in with 10 points. The loss dropped Peninsula to 17-8 overall and 7-2 in league play.
Early in the fourth quarter Redondo starting guard Tyler Murrell was whistled for a technical foul when he kicked a Peninsula player. Coach Martin immediately chewed him out in front of the bench for all to see and pulled him from the game.
“We handled it right there and then we moved on,” Martin said after the game. “He got the message that it was unacceptable.”
Martin’s deft handling of the potentially nasty incident, along with Redondo’s record of 22-4 overall and 9-0 in league play raised the question of when – or if – he will shed the interim tag and be named the permanent coach.
Redondo Athletic Director Andy Saltsman conceded that Martin has done a great job in what many observers predicted would be a down year following the loss of five of Redondo’s top six players from last year, but said he was not ready to remove the interim tag.
“There’s no doubt he has done a good job, and after the season is all over we will evaluate everything and make a decision,” he said.