El Camino Wins, 71-68, in Overtime

That blaming finger, pointed so sharply at El Camino’s Eric Dunn following a loss last weekend, took a softer turn Wednesday night at Compton.

That’s when Dunn neatly extricated himself from Coach Paul Landreaux’s doghouse with a 22-point performance that lifted the Warriors to a 71-68 overtime victory over the Tartars.

The 6-7 sophomore from St. Bernard, who did not play basketball in high school, bore the brunt of responsibility for the Warriors’ loss at Long Beach on Saturday night. Wednesday night he shared the bonus of victory.

“He did not play in high school, and he’s just learning,” said Landreaux. “He’s not very physical, but we always knew he had a great shot. Tonight he helped us, and that’s good, especially after the Long Beach game because we kind of attributed the whole loss to him.”

Dunn scored six points in overtime and Chris Smith added two clutch free throws and a blocked shot to pace the Warriors to their seventh conference win against two losses. El Camino is 23-3 overall, while Compton fell to 4-5 and 15-8.

Darron Jackson came off the bench to knock down 14 points for the Warriors, who erased an eight-point half-time deficit.

Trailing 37-29 at intermission, El Camino went long range to climb back into the game. Arlandis Rush hit three three-pointers and Jackson added two free throws to tie the game. Dunn had six points in the final five minutes, but Jackson’s three pointer with 1:28 left tied the game at 64-64 and sent it into overtime.

“To come in here and win the game is a tremendous accomplishment,” Landreaux said, “especially after that tough loss at Long Beach. So I am ecstatic.”

Greg Armstrong had 21 points for Compton, while Vincent Camper, the South Coast conference’s second leading scorer, finished with 19.