Boys’ Basketball: CdM rally falls short
Eighteen minutes prior to tipoff, the PA announcer told the crowd at Corona del Mar High that the game would start 15 minutes late. The reason was traffic, to let Pasadena’s fans make it in time.
Those who arrived late still managed to catch a hard-fought contest down the stretch on Tuesday.
When it looked like No. 2-seeded Pasadena was seven minutes away from beating CdM in the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 1A boys’ basketball playoffs, the Sea Kings made a late charge.
The hosts overcame a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter, taking a one-point lead on DJ Rodman’s wide-open layup with 3:04 to go.
Rodman has been on fire in the playoffs, scoring 30 points in the first round against El Toro and 40 in the second round at Compton Dominguez. Rodman and the Sea Kings failed to score again, and they fell short of pulling off an upset for the second straight round.
Bryce Hamilton scored 20 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, helping Pasadena edge CdM, 47-44.
Hamilton, a junior guard who has an offer from UNLV, produced all of his team’s six points in the final quarter. He gave Pasadena a 43-33 lead after knocking down a jumper and landing on his rear end.
Then the Sea Kings scored the next 11 points, Rodman accounting for six of them. Rodman, a sophomore who had 24 points, made three shots in a row during the run. The first two were jumpers just below the charity stripe and the last was the layup that gave CdM a 44-43 lead, its first advantage since it led 10-8 late in the first quarter.
Hamilton tied it with a free throw with about 2½ minutes remaining. His next points came when he attacked, driving to his left, splitting the defense, to put the Bulldogs ahead, 46-44, at the 1:57 mark.
The Sea Kings ran a triangle-and-two defense on Hamilton, and somehow he kept making his way into the paint past multiple defenders. They sent him to the free-throw line three times, and Hamilton converted only two of five free throws in the fourth quarter.
Those two proved to be enough to get the Bulldogs to Friday’s semifinals. Pasadena (23-5) plays host to Rolling Hills Estates Peninsula (20-9), which defeated Lakewood Mayfair, 71-60, on Tuesday.
“We’ve been stuck in this round for [two of] the past [three] years, and it’s just great to overcome it,” Hamilton said. “They played tough [defense]. They didn’t let me get anything [easy].”
The defense did not deter Hamilton from taking shots. One of his misses led to a big offensive rebound by Lazarus Morris, who took the ball away from Mitch Haly underneath the basket.
With 40 seconds remaining, Pasadena got a fresh 35-second shot clock. The Sea Kings fouled Hamilton 27 seconds later, and he made one of two free throws.
John Humphreys, a freshman, turned in another strong defensive performance for CdM (22-8).
With Humphreys defending Hamilton, he limited him to eight-for-18 shooting. This came four days after holding Dominguez’s Wayne Arnold to eight points in CdM’s 68-58 come-from-behind win in the second round.
The Sea Kings had chances late to go into overtime with Pasadena. Rodman misfired on a corner three-pointer with two seconds left, seeing it bank off the glass.
The Bulldogs seemed to have it all wrapped up, as Darius Mason got the defensive rebound. The Sea Kings fouled him with 1.7 seconds left, sending him to the free-throw line for a one-and-one situation. Then things got a little bizarre. He made the first free throw, but the referee blew the whistle, saying CdM called a timeout before the free throw.
The teams returned to the court, and the ref called a line violation on Mason. The ball went to CdM, and Haly threw a long inbound pass toward midcourt, near the sideline, where the Bulldogs knocked it out of bounds with 1.4 seconds.
The Pacific Coast League champion Sea Kings got a better look at a possible game-tying three. The inbound took place near midcourt, but Rodman’s long three fell way short and the Pacific League champion Bulldogs moved on.
“We had chances,” said CdM Coach Ryan Schachter, whose team started strong, outscoring Pasadena, 10-1, in the first three minutes, and outscored the Bulldogs, 11-2, in the first four minutes in the fourth quarter. “We’re pretty darn good. We’re a lot better than I think people think we are. We will have four returning starters [in Rodman, junior Kevin Kobrine, who had 10 points, Humphreys and junior Ben Coffman] coming back next year.”
CIF Southern Section
Division 1A playoffs
Quarterfinals
Pasadena 47,
Corona del Mar 44
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Pasadena 10 – 19 – 12 – 6 — 47
CdM 10 – 9 – 14 – 11 — 44
P – Hamilton 20, Brown II 12, Mason 4, West 4, Watkins 3, Taylor 3, Morris 1.
3-pt. goals – Taylor 1, Watkins 1.
Fouled out – None.
Technicals – None.
CdM – Rodman 24, Kobrine 10, Humphreys 6, Coffman 4.
3-pt. goals – Rodman 1, Coffman 1, Kobrine 1.
Fouled out – None.
Technicals – None.
CIFPlayoffs
Pasadena47
Corona del Mar44
Twitter: @ByDCP
