Southern California Regional Basketball : Neal and Price Lift Santa Monica Over Morse

Cliff Hunter, Santa Monica High School’s basketball coach, saw the condition of two of his top players, Keith Neal and Danny Price, on Monday and considered benching them for the Vikings’ opening-round playoff game of the Southern Regionals Tuesday.

Luckily for Santa Monica, Hunter decided to let them play.

Although both players had been suffering from the flu, Neal scored 16 points and grabbed 9 rebounds and Price added 15 points and 8 rebounds to pace Santa Monica to a 71-57 victory over San Diego’s Morse High in the Division I Southern Regional playoffs in front of 1,844 at San Diego State.

Santa Monica, which improved to 19-9, advanced to a Division I Southern semifinal playoff against top-seeded Fairfax on Thursday night at Santa Monica City College. Morse finished its season at 22-3.

“I sent them home from school Monday,” Hunter said of Price and Neal. “I was considering leaving them home, but they played one heck of a game for us.

“They looked like they were half dead Monday.”

The two were clearly alive Tuesday night, dominating Morse with their driving layups and agile defense.

Hunter said he knew very little about Morse before the game. “I didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “I knew nothing about them except they will keep coming at you and that they try to do a little too much sometimes.”

Morse did both. The Tigers, who dominated San Diego County this season with their smothering defense and fast-break offense, took the opening tip and looked surprisingly controlled. But Santa Monica took control of the game and never relinquished it.

Santa Monica scored nine straight points to take an 11-2 lead with 4:30 remaining in the opening period. At the end of the period, the Vikings led, 17-9.

All of Santa Monica’s points came from inside the key in the first period. In fact, the Vikings controlled the key all night, outrebounding Morse, 28-25.

“I think that’s where they killed us--inside,” Morse guard Rey Parson said.

Said Morse Coach Ron Davis: “We didn’t get any rebounds in the first period, and that told the story of the game.”

Morse, as Hunter expected, did not give up. Midway through the second period, the Tigers scored eight unanswered points to cut the Vikings’ lead to 27-21.

Morse couldn’t keep its momentum, allowing Santa Monica to increase its lead to 35-25 by the half.

“After we got off to a great start, the kids got real casual and lost control of their ballhandling,” Hunter said.

By the fourth period, Santa Monica had ensured its victory, scoring 14 straight points to lead by 61-43 with four minutes to play.

Morse’s Marcus Combs lead all scorers with 17 points.