Simi Valley shows no mercy, pours it on against Lancers

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It’s not how you start but how you finish, and the Simi Valley boys’ basketball team knows this all too well after opening Wednesday’s showdown against visiting Thousand Oaks sluggishly. The Pioneers, however, closed out the game with a flurry, thoroughly defeating the Lancers, 66-56, to clinch the Marmonte League championship.

‘It didn’t matter if we started out the game slow, there was no way we were going to let them come into our house and win this game,’’ Simi Valley senior Lorne Jackson said. ‘We knew if we kept working hard, kept playing our game, we’d get back into it. Once we got rolling, they figured out we were no joke.’’

The Lancers opened up a 17-10 lead at the end of the first quarter behind the steady play of Michael Shelton and Michael Whalen. The Pioneers, ranked No. 8 by The Times, responded. Paul Williams came off the bench and scored seven points over a four-plus minute stretch and Jackson added five points of his own to give Simi Valley a 29-27 lead at halftime.

Thousand Oaks didn’t put up much of a fight in the third quarter, or the fourth quarter, for that matter. Jackson and Michael Meza scored at will, finishing with 20 points each as the Pioneers extended the lead to as many as 18 points with just more than five minutes to play. After that, league title talk ran rampant throughout Tom Harmon Gym.

‘We finished things off with a bang,’’ Meza said. ‘All season our focus has been winning league. To do it here at home, in front of our fans, against Thousand Oaks, the way we did.... It’s a great feeling. It’s the only way to go out.’’

-- Sean Ceglinsky