Redondo wins second straight tournament

Redondo’s Brandon Boyd was named Most Valuable Player of the Sea Hawk Beach Classic after leading the host team to a 58-42 victory over Narbonne in the tournament’s championship game. Photo

Bring on Leuzinger!
That was the battle cry among legions of excited Sea Hawk fans after their Redondo boys’ basketball team stretched its winning streak to nine games and its tournament winning streak to two by rolling over Narbonne 58-42 in the final of the 16th annual Sea Hawk Beach Classic.
The Sea Hawks open Bay League play next week and will get their first shot at Leuzinger, the highly-ranked preseason favorite to win the Bay League, when they host the Olympians Friday, Jan. 22. Leuzinger lost to Thousand Oaks 59-55 in last season’s CIF Division II-AA championship game.
The Sea Hawk Beach Classic was tight for the first half, with Narbonne pulling ahead 27-23 before Redondo’s Tournament MVP Brandon Boyd hit a running foul-line jumper at the halftime buzzer to level the score at 27-27. The Sea Hawks dominated the second half as Jamar Cannon finally found his mojo and showed off his entire repertoire of spinning bank shots, quick change-of-direction drives and the occasional knuckle-ball three pointer to finish with a game-high 25 points and lead his team to the championship. Boyd added 17 points and B.T. Trias contributed 14 points for Redondo. Cannon and Austin Moore joined Boyd on the all-tournament team.
Mira Costa lost a rematch with Narbonne, 54-50, in the quarterfinals after beating the Gauchos 53-49 in the championship game of the Mira Costa edition of the Pacific Shores Tournament in early December.
The Mustangs’ senior star and all-tournament selection, 6-foot-5 Eric Mochalski, got the crowd roaring with an in-and-out-and-back-in three-pointer that drew Costa to within three points with a minute left. But the mad rally finally fizzled when Narbonne star Sailo Leafa, a 6-foot-1 junior guard who was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, calmly sank two foul shots with eight seconds left to give the Gauchos a 54-50 lead that the Mustangs couldn’t overcome.
Mira Costa finished fifth in the Sea Hawk Beach Classic after defeating North 72-69 behind Elliott Ozer’s 23 points and 10 rebounds. Thomas Johnson added 21 points, 10 rebounds and six blocks while Mochalski contributed 12 points, six rebounds, nine assists and three steals for the Mustangs.
After Redondo ventured all the way to Hawaii to win the Maui Classic the previous week, the Sea Hawk Classic gave Redondo Head Coach Tom Maier’s team the luxury of four straight home games in front of an adoring crowd and a PA announcer who takes home cooking to a whole new level. The four-game run exposed both their strengths — guards Cannon and Boyd — and their weaknesses: not much quickness beyond those two greyhounds, and no real post presence, offensively or defensively, beyond 6-foot-6 senior center Dylan Irwin. His only help on the boards comes from the 6-foot Cannon, who is their best rebounder just by virtue of being a strong, aggressive athlete, and Boyd, who is also a ball-magnet on the backboard despite being a reed-thin 6-foot-1 point guard whose forte is defense, penetration and play-making.
The Sea Hawks’ other constant strength, year in and year out, is Maier’s disciplined system that demands lock-down defense and unselfish offensive play that puts the team above any individual player. That system was the intangible that carried them past their greatest challenge of the tournament: Monday night’s second-round backyard brawl turned track meet against North Torrance.
North coach Gary Duperron employs a classic 32-minutes-of-hell system: trap every inbounds pass, press full court on every possession, and double-team every dribble drive. On offense, Duperron has the Saxons fast break at every opportunity and gives them a green light to launch a 3-pointer whenever they are feeling it. He does it all with two squads of five players each: his A Team and his B Team.
North had already eclipsed the 100-point mark three times this season. In a 103-101 opening-round victory over Australia’s Melbourne College One in the Bishop Gorman Las Vegas Tournament, the Saxons did so without the aid of a single 3-point shot.
North starters played half the first quarter and came out en masse for five subs that proceeded to keep up the manic pace. Then the A Team came back in to finish the first quarter, a pattern that was repeated throughout the game. It was fun for the 10 North players who got significant minutes on court, fun for the fans who got to see a high-scoring, rollercoaster game and even fun — sometimes — for the Redondo players. That’s because the downside to the North system is that with all five players running fast breaks and crashing the boards and throwing their bodies around they often forgot about the other end of the court, giving up numerous coast-to-coast drives and leak-out lay-ups.
The other key factor in Redondo’s win over North was the emergence — for one night at least — of Moore as an offensive alternative to Cannon and Boyd. On a night when Cannon was being swarmed every time he got near the ball and Boyd was being harassed full court, the 6-foot-3 junior forward suddenly started draining corner threes and leaking out for air-mailed, length-of-the-court passes for break-away lay-ups.
After an easy first-round win over Verbum Dei, Redondo got an immediate wake-up call in its second-round game as North raced out to a 10-2 lead, led by star guard Daren Hechanova, a 6-foot-2 junior who penetrates well and has a high hoops IQ to go with a nice soft shot. But after that first surge, the B Team came in and Redondo immediately took advantage as Boyd hit a lay-up and a 10-foot jumper to bring the Seahawks back to 12-10.
Duperron rushed his A Team back in and they were successful once again at elevating the pace and shots, pushing the lead out to 23-15 by the end of the first quarter. Cannon, refusing to force the action, missed the only shot he took and then finished the quarter on a down note by missing two foul shots just before the buzzer.
The aptly-named Cannon, more of a volume scorer than a pure shooter due to his funky release and knuckleball shot, immediately banged in a trifecta to get the Sea Hawk rally going. Just before the halftime buzzer Moore scored on another leak-out lay-up to give Redondo its first lead of the game 37-36. The North players sagged their shoulders as they walked off, realizing they had dominated the first half but were somehow trailing, thanks to Moore’s out-of-nowhere 12-point outburst in the second quarter.
As the third quarter opened Moore hit yet another three-pointer to give the Seahawks a 42-36 lead and the game was essentially over. Now the North two-platoon system degenerated into chaos as the parade of players tried to do too much too quickly and ended up doing very little. Redondo, meanwhile, just kept playing within Maier’s structured system and when Moore hit yet another trifecta, the Sea Hawks suddenly had a 47-37 lead and the Redondo faithful finally relaxed a bit.
It was 60-52 at the end of the third quarter, and Redondo was able to maintain that margin for the rest of the game as Moore finished with 27 points while leading the Hawks to a 74-67 win.
In the semifinals Redondo pummeled Long Beach Millikan by 62-48, thus setting up the final showdown with Narbonne.
Redondo hosts North in a rematch of their second-round thriller tomorrow at 7:30 p.m., then opens Bay League action at Palos Verdes Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
Mira Costa continues to prepare for league action with a 7 p.m. road game at Santa Monica tomorrow and at University (Irvine) Saturday. The Mustangs open Bay League play Tuesday, hosting Leuzinger at 7:30 p.m. ER

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