Valencia Goes to First Round Following Win Over Rowland

Valencia High School came on strong in the final quarter to earn a spot in the first round of the Southern Section 3-A playoffs following a 54-39 win over Rowland Wednesday night in a wild-card game at Placentia.

The victory moves the Tigers (15-9) into the postseason tournament where they will meet Bonita (21-4) on Friday night in Pomona. Rowland ended the year with a 12-13 record.

Valencia outscored the Raiders, 19-7, in the last quarter to break open a close game. The Tigers jumped out to a 41-32 lead after Norman Nakawaki, Kevin Jones and Jeff Jensen hit consecutive shots and Rowland never recovered.

Valencia looked as if it was going make short work of the Raiders, opening a 12-2 lead in the first quarter. The Raiders’ cause didn’t appear any brighter with 1:46 left in the period when 6-foot 7-inch center Ryan McReynolds picked up his third foul and went to the bench.

But Rowland managed to catch the Tigers at 20-20 with 3:19 left in the first half after Andrew Bartz connected on a long jump shot and the game remained close until the last quarter.

Valencia guard Chris Rojo failed to take a shot in the first quarter, but the senior got hot in the second quarter, scoring 12 points, including a jump shot at the buzzer that pushed Valencia ahead, 30-24.

But while Rojo managed only one basket in the second half, Jones carried the Tigers with his scoring and rebounding. He finished with 17 points and 20 rebounds. Valencia outrebounded Rowland, 39-24, and limited the Raiders to only 15 points in the second half.

“We’ve been playing good defense all season, but some lousy free throw shooting in the second half of league play really hurt us,” Tiger Coach Ray Rodriguez said. “We shot only 49% from the line as a team in the second half of league, but I’m sure we were better than that tonight.”

The Tigers made 14 of 19 attempts, including 9 of 11 in the last quarter to give Rodriguez his first playoff win in his nine years at Valencia.

“I think the last time this school won a playoff game was 1972,” he said. “I honestly think we could have gone 19-5 instead of 14-9 and avoided the wild-card game if a few more breaks this year.

“We lost Rojo with a knee injury and that really hurt our offense. He’s only playing at 80%, but this was the kind of game he likes with Rowland playing a man-to-man defense.

“Probably the worst thing that happened to us was getting a 12-2 lead. We started slacking off when we got the lead. We’ve had problems putting anybody away. At halftime, the shot chart showed we had missed 10 shots inside the paint where a team should make 50% of its shots.”

Guard Sheldon Borson, who once lived in Valencia’s attendance area, paced Rowland with 18 points and Bartz added 10 points, including a 35-foot shot to end the third quarter.

ROWLAND (39)--Castanos 4, Alberto 2, McReynolds 3, Borson 18, Bartz 10, Katzaroff 2.

VALENCIA (54)--Nakawaki 9, Jones 17, Adams 5, Rojo 15, Jensen 8.