Harbor Tops 100 Points Again and Tops East L. A.

Harbor College opened its 1987-1988 basketball season with a disappointing 103-100 loss to San Diego City College. The Seahawks reached the century mark Wednesday for only the second time this year, but this time they made it count with a 105-100 victory over the hapless East Los Angeles Huskies at East L. A.

Harbor’s commanding 99-87 advantage with 3:01 to play forced L. A. to foul on all of Harbor’s ensuing possessions. The Seahawks missed nine of 14 free throws and several short jump shots in the next three minutes before the Huskies ran out of time.

Harbor Coach Ken Curry sweated out carelessness among his Seahawks, who faced a 16-minute full-court press until the final buzzer. “We should have scored 120 points but we fumbled the ball through no cause of their press,” Curry said. “We need to convert in those situations.”

Harbor did convert for most of the game. The Seahawks ran off a 14-3 spurt at the start of the second half and looked ready to coast home. But East L. A. crept back on the strength of Juan Delgado’s four second-half three pointers, cutting Harbor’s lead to six with five minutes left.

Meanwhile, Harbor’s Mike Lee was eclipsing last Friday’s season-high 18-point effort against Marymount Palos Verdes College with 19 including some on flashy cuts in the paint.

“I’ve been telling Mike that he had to get more aggressive,” said Curry. “He’s going to play and we’ve got to find more scoring from somewhere. Mike was barely averaging 11 points a game and we get him a lot of easy shots, but he just hasn’t been putting the shots down.”

Almost everything fell for Seahawk Mark Hill, who turned in 32 after getting 30 against Marymount. Hill sat out last Wednesday’s game because Curry felt Hill needed time off after ejection in a loss to Mt. San Jacinto and again losing his composure when Harbor lost to College of the Desert two nights later. Apparently the break helped.

“He’s doing well, he’s shooting well and he’s getting a lot of encouragement from people around school, and I think that has something to do with the calmness we’ve got from him,” Curry said. “He just has to deal with everything related to (the fight) and he’s done a good job.”

Supporting Hill and Lee were Bruce Turner with 18 points and Jerome Hendrix with 15. Delgado equaled Hill’s 32 for East L. A. Freshman David Pettie added 20 and Darryl Ford had 17.

Harbor improved to 17-8 overall and 8-2 in the Southern California Athletic Conference. East L. A. fell to 5-20 and 2-8.