Fourth-quarter flourish leads La Cañada boys’ hoops into quarterfinals

It took three quarters, but finally the La Cañada High boys’ basketball team’s offense opened up like the skies outside Hofman Gymnasium.

After they were held to 32 points through three quarters, the Spartans tallied 28 in a near runaway fourth quarter to defeat visiting San Clemente, 60-53, in the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division I-A playoffs Friday evening.

With the victory, fourth-seeded La Cañada (25-4), the Rio Hondo League champion, earned advancement to face No. 5-ranked Loyola (18-9), the Mission League’s No. 3 team, on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in downtown Los Angeles.

La Cañada has now advanced to the quarterfinal round in four straight seasons.

“[La Cañada senior guard] Justin [Kouyoumdjian] got hot and when Justin got going, he did a great job,” La Cañada Coach Tom Hofman said. “Patric [Panoosi] also had some really big plays for us. We rebounded when we needed to, hit shots and calmed down.”

Kouyoumdjian scored a game-high 19 points, four steals and four assists, while Panoosi finished with a double-double of 17 points and 10 rebounds.

It was an odd night of sorts for the Spartans, who had just five turnovers, but that was offset by a tough shooting effort from behind the arc as La Cañada hit six of 26 (23%) three-pointers.

Yet, in the fourth quarter, the Spartans finished three for five from the three-point line, with Kouyoumdjian leading the way with a pair of triples.

La Cañada held a tentative 32-31 lead after three quarters when Kouyoumdjian drained back-to-back three-pointers to open the quarter, which suddenly thrust the Spartans to their biggest lead, 38-31, with 6:50 left.

Kouyoumdjian then stole possession away from San Clemente at half-court and was fouled the other way. The senior shooter hit two free throws to put his team ahead by nine.

Kouyoumdjian’s eight-point burst was part of an overall 17-1 run from the Spartans that culminated on a lay-up from Panoosi on an assist from senior Sean Estes with 3:14 left that put La Cañada up, 49-32, with 3:14 left in the contest.

“Nerves were going for us tonight because this was our first game in CIF,” said Kouyoumdjian, as the Spartans had a first-round bye. “After we got those jitters out, we knew that the shots would fall. It was great to see them finally go in the basket.”

Though South Coast League-champion San Clemente (20-9) never quit and trimmed its deficit to nine at 52-43 after a three-pointer from Isaac Rex (12 points) with 1:40 remaining, the Tritons simply had too big of a hole to climb out of.

Blake Birmingham scored a team-high 15 points for San Clemente.

La Cañada led, 22-18, at halftime, but the Tritons had all the momentum when senior Michael Moran (10 points) scored on a two-footer with 4:54 left in the third quarter, while he was fouled.

Though Moran missed his follow-up free throw, he tied the game at 24 and hobbled La Cañada as 6-foot-7 center Estes, who totaled 13 points, seven rounds and two steals, picked up his fourth foul and was pulled.

La Cañada pushed back with a three-pointer from Kouyoumdjian, but the Tritons eventually passed the Spartans on a runner from Jacob Nemeth with 1:24 left that gave the visitors a 31-29 lead.

Hofman gambled by putting Estes back in the contest and La Cañada received a big lift when sophomore Ryan Graves buried a corner three-pointer off an assist from Kouyoumdjian with 29 seconds left that gave the Spartans a 32-31 lead going into the fourth.

“I had to tone down my aggressiveness and do whatever I could not to get that fifth foul,” Estes said. “My guys stepped up and made all the big plays when they had to. I couldn’t be prouder.”