Estes, La Cañada boys’ basketball edges St. Francis
LA CAÑADA — It doesn’t take much to ignite Sean Estes when the La Cañada High boys’ basketball team meets neighboring rival St. Francis.
Take the latest meeting between the Spartans and Golden Knights, which occurred Saturday night in front of a noisy crowd in the third-place contest of the La Cañada High Tournament.
Estes enjoyed a fabulous effort, as he registered 17 points, 12 rebounds, four blocks and three assists to help La Cañada earn a 50-46 victory.
“There’s always a lot of energy coming from the fans and you feed off that on the court,” said Estes, a senior center who received All-Area first-team honors last season. “It’s something that’s a lot of fun and it turned out to be a real good game.
“I just wanted to go out there and help out any way I could. I tried to get to the hole more with the ball, but I didn’t get much time to catch and shoot. I tried to help out on defense.”
La Cañada (7-2) took a 44-33 lead on a three-pointer by Justin Kouyoumdjian with 4:12 left in the fourth quarter.
St. Francis (5-3) then went on a 13-4 run and cut the deficit to 48-46 on a basket by Joey Walsh with 18.1 seconds to go.
However, La Cañada’s Patric Panoosi made two free throws to close out the scoring with 11.4 seconds remaining.
Veteran La Cañada Coach Tom Hofman, whose team is ranked second in CIF Southern Section Division I-A behind Loyola, said the Golden Knights gave the Spartans all they could handle.
“St. Francis did a good job coming back in the fourth quarter,” said Hofman, whose team won the Rio Hondo League championship last season. “Both teams played hard to the end and that’s what you expect.
“I thought we were just a little tentative at times. I thought Sean had another great game. We expect a lot from him at both ends and we know he can even get better.”
Estes blocked two shots early in the third quarter and then scored on a jump shot to give the Spartans a 26-19 lead with 5:09 left. He sank a three-pointer to extend the lead to 29-19 about a minute later.
The Spartans held a 20-19 halftime advantage. Walsh made two free throws with 7.3 seconds to go in the half to close out the first-half scoring.
La Cañada got 14 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and three steals from Panoosi and 13 points from Kouyoumdjian.
Walsh collected 16 points, five rebounds and two blocks for St. Francis, which got 15 points from Malakhi Jensen.
“I liked the way we came back and we gave ourselves a chance at the end,” St. Francis Coach Todd Wolfson said. “We are definitely getting better as a program.
“It’s just a matter of time when the score will flip in our favor. We played well in the tournament against some good teams.”
La Cañada picked up pool-play wins against Hollywood and Glendale before falling to Bonita. St. Francis defeated Marina and Arcadia and fell to Damien in pool play.
Estes and Kouyoumdjian were selected to the all-tournament team. St. Francis’ Andre Henry and Matthew Molina were also bestowed with all-tournament recognition.
