Granada Hills Survives First-Half Cold Spell : Highlanders Beat Fairfax to Reach Final

After watching the first 12 minutes of the Fairfax-Granada Hills High semifinal game in the Chaminade tournament Thursday night, at least one spectator was puzzled by the proceedings.

“Excuse me,” he said to a reporter seated nearby. “But is this a varsity game?”

You couldn’t blame him for asking at that point. Neither team had reached double figures midway through the period.

“We couldn’t hit anything,” Granada Hills Coach Bob Johnson said after the Highlanders had stumbled past Fairfax, 47-38. “That was our worst half so far. And I thought we played some pretty bad halves.”

Granada Hills will play defending state champion Manual Arts, a 69-62 winner over Washington, in the final at 7:30 tonight.

Things were so bad for the Highlanders that Fairfax (6-5) made only 6 of 21 field-goal attempts and still led at halftime, 17-14.

Granada Hills (8-1) was even worse, shooting a pathetic 16% (4 of 25) from the field and 36.4% (4 of 11) from the free-throw line.

In the second half, however, Granada Hills picked up the tempo with a full-court, man-to-man defense that forced 8 turnovers.

“The shots just weren’t falling in the first half,” said guard John Johnson, who scored a game-high 15 points. “We got more into our motion offense in the second half and started to hit some shots.”

Trailing, 19-18, with 5:33 left in the third quarter, Granada Hills took the lead for good, 24-23, on a Johnson layup with 3:03 left in the quarter and led, 31-24, at the start of the fourth period.

“I didn’t get on the kids at halftime,” Bob Johnson said. “I just told them, ‘Hey, you had your bad half, you can’t get any worse.’ ”

Johnson proved correct as Granada Hills hit 50% (12 of 24) of its shots after intermission.

In another tournament game:

Simi Valley 57, Verbum Dei 49--The Pioneers trailed by 2 points early in the second quarter but went on a 22-0 tear and led at halftime, 35-18.

Simi Valley (6-5) will face Bishop O’Dowd of Oakland (7-3), in the fifth-place game at 3 p.m. today.

Center Mike Wawryk scored 10 of his 16 points in the third period as the Pioneers took a 50-32 lead after 3 quarters.