Morningside Girls Win Another Bell-Jeff Title

Sharon Hargrove scored 11 of her 17 points in the fourth quarter as Morningside defeated Lynwood, 55-52, and won the Bell-Jeff Tournament for the second straight year.

The two schools have now combined to win all three championships of the three-year-old tournament.

“I think these are the two best teams in CIF,” Morningside Coach Frank Scott said. “Anyone who criticizes us for being boring hasn’t really seen us play.

“I used to coach boys basketball at Morningside and I’ve never regretted the transition.”

Morningside came equipped with a 6-4 center, Lisa Leslie, and enough offensive punch to outscore its opponents by an average of 30 points in the first three rounds.

But the Monarchs had trouble with Lynwood’s speed and trailed by as many as seven points late in the third quarter.

Morningside, however, outscored Lynwood, 21-13, during the final quarter.

Hargrove made a layup and a free throw to tie the score at 39 and then scored seven of Morningside’s next 15 points as the Monarchs took a commanding 54-47 lead with 1:10 left.

A basket by Trise Jackson, who scored a game-high 19 points, and a three-pointer by Candice Boyd brought Lynwood close, but Morningside was not to be caught.

“This was a sweet victory,” said Scott, whose team lost to Lynwood in the semifinals of the L.A. Games. “We haven’t beaten Lynwood in five or six games and I wanted to beat them before some of these girls graduated.”

Leslie scored 15 points and slowed down Lynwood’s inside game with seven blocked shots.

“We knew Jackson was going to get her 19 or 20 points, but Leslie played a key part in keeping their big girls from scoring inside.”

In other championship-bracket games, Santa Barbara used its height advantage to coast to a third-place finish with a 55-35 victory over Muir. Faha Banks and Kristin Knapp each scored nine points for Santa Barbara. Muir’s Angela Grant led all scorers with 15.

In the fifth-place game, Beth Merkovsky scored 18 of her 23 points in the first half as Redlands defeated Gahr, 44-33.

In the seventh-place game, Tammy Booker scored 21 points to lead St. Mary’s to a 42-34 victory over Pasadena.