The High Schools / Steve Elling : Harvard Guard Proves a Point at 60 Feet

For one person in the Faith Baptist gymnasium, and probably no more than one, there was never a doubt regarding the outcome of Thursday night’s basketball game between Harvard and Oak Park.

Never mind that the score was tied, 48-48, and that Harvard had to inbound from underneath the Oak Park basket with 2 seconds left in the game. For senior guard Geoff Given, this was no real problem.

He wanted the ball. Preferably near midcourt. With no time left.

“He actually spends a lot of time after practice throwing shots up from way out around half court,” Harvard Coach Greg Hilliard said. “He stays out there until I kick him out of the gym.”

Faced with an improbable situation--Harvard would have a difficult time getting close enough to the Oak Park basket to attempt a realistic shot--Hilliard decided to let Given, who had 5 points at that juncture, take his best shot.

“I figured I might as well,” Hilliard said.

Andres Carlo inbounded to Bryan Domyan, who passed to Given standing at the top of the key on the Oak Park end of the floor. Given launched a prayer from approximately 60 feet, and . . .

“Swish,” Hilliard said.

The three-point shot gave the Saracens a 51-48 win.

Given’s reaction?

“He came off the court and said ‘See, I told you I could do it,’ ” Hilliard said.

Record program: Canyon can become the only football team in the 1980s to win 4 Southern Section football titles with a win tonight over Antelope Valley in the Division II championship game. The Cowboys, who won 3 consecutive championships starting in 1983, are tied with Atascadero and El Toro.

Only Tehachapi (5) has played in more championship games than Canyon this decade, and only Atascadero has more playoff wins. The Greyhounds, who have set a state record for wins in a decade with 103, are 23-5 in the postseason.

Canyon, which made its first trip to the playoffs this decade in Coach Harry Welch’s rookie season in 1982, is 20-3 and 3 for 3 in title games.

Scheduling quirk: Notre Dame meets Loyola tonight for the championship of the Cubs’ basketball tournament, and 48 hours later the teams play again in a nonleague game at Notre Dame to cap an odd week for the Knights.

Notre Dame started its season at St. Monica on Tuesday and expected a night off before opening the Loyola tournament. But Loyola officials altered the 3-day tournament, originally scheduled to run Thursday through Saturday, by moving the first 2 rounds of the tournament back a day. Loyola wanted to make Friday free for Cub fans, who expected to watch the school’s football team play for the Southern Section Division I championship.

But the Cubs, ranked No. 1 in the nation most of the season, spoiled those plans by losing in the semifinal round last week to Bishop Amat.

Working overtime: Sitting in the top row of the bleachers at the Cleveland gym Tuesday night were 3 area City Section basketball coaches. Jim Woodard of Taft, Yutaka Shimizu of Kennedy and Mike McNulty of El Camino Real sat side by side and watched Cleveland dismantle Fairfax, 86-48.

All were doing a little advance work by scouting Cleveland, a team the 3 coaches will face in Northwest Valley League play later this season. If wasting a night off is what it takes to get a jump on the competition, so be it.

Of course, to some, it wasn’t a waste of time at all.

“What else are we going to do on a Tuesday night?” Woodard asked facetiously.

Forward ho: Cleveland scored a tournament-record 62 points in the second half of a 97-64 win over Rancho Cordova of Sacramento in Thursday’s first-round game of the Amador Basketball Classic in Pleasanton.

And unlike Tuesday’s 86-48 win over Fairfax, in which 3 Cleveland guards combined for 46 points, the Cavalier forwards led the way--senior Lucious Harris had 23 points and senior Warren Harrell 21.