Plenty of Reserve Lifts Cleveland to Las Vegas Title

In terms of measuring the possible impact of the swing that might have taken place when Cleveland High starting forward Warren Harrell picked up his third foul with 1:43 remaining in the second quarter, one might have to go quite a way back in time.

In Coach Bob Braswell’s eyes, at the moment of Harrell’s indiscretion at least, the last time a swing this big was taken, Marie Antoinette’s head was in a guillotine.

The whistle blew, Harrell was removed from the game, and Braswell’s head was in his hands as Fairdale of Kentucky made 2 free throws to take a 1-point lead.

“That’s when we like to tell them it’s time to decide whether you want to be known as a wimp or a warrior,” Braswell said.

In a rally led by reserves, the Cavaliers not only proved better soldiers, they pulled away and did it in decisive fashion, 74-63, in the championship game of the Las Vegas Holiday tournament at Nevada Las Vegas on Thursday night.

Losing Harrell, in fact, set off an unlikely chain of events that saw the Cavaliers (9-2) outscore physical Fairdale, 8-0, over the final 1:43 of the first half to to take a 40-33 lead.

Reserve forward Trenton Cornelius, who had walking pneumonia earlier this month, not only filled in for Harrell--the game MVP in Cleveland’s semifinal win over Redmond, Wash., on Wednesday--he filled it up as well.

Cornelius, who had scored all of 8 points in Cleveland’s 4 previous tournament games, tossed in a hook shot from the right baseline and grabbed 2 rebounds as the Cavaliers took their halftime lead.

Cornelius, a 6-foot, 7-inch junior, played the entire third quarter as Harrell watched from the bench. Cornelius sparked a rally at both ends of the court that buried Fairdale under a 56-42 deficit entering the final 8 minutes.

Corneluis added another hook shot in the third quarter and helped attract defensive attention from teammate Lucious Harris, who scored 9 of his game-high 21 points in the third quarter. Harris, who scored 20 or more points in all 5 of Cleveland’s games, was named the tournament MVP after averaging 22.8 points and 10.4 rebounds.

Harrell’s smile was turned upside down as he watched from the bench as his teammates pulverized Fairdale with a depth charge it was unable to match.

“That was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,” said Harrell, who will attend New Mexico State. “It just goes to show that anybody on the team can step up and fill in if we need them.”

And there’s a big difference between stepping in and stepping boldly.

“That was a big, big challenge for us,” Braswell said. “They are a very aggressive team, and this was testimony to the attitude of everyone on the bench.”

Another non-starter came out firing, too. Junior guard Eddie Hill had 10 points to complement starters Tim Bowen and Adonis Jordan, who each scored 11. Jordan was named to the all-tournament team along with Harris.

“We just had to come on,” said Harris, who will attend Cal State Long Beach. “We had to keep our head up. They were very physical and they crashed the boards real hard.”

The chief crashers were 15-year-old sophomores Jermaine Brown and Maurice Morris, who scored 18 and 19 points, respectively, for Fairdale. Only one other Fairdale player scored more than 5 points, so it was obvious who carried the load and who was a burden.

“Those guys are only 15 years old,” Braswell asked. “They must grow them big out there in Kentucky.”

And they run up big leads in a hurry out West. The Cavaliers made their first 6 field-goal attempts in the third quarter to take a 50-37 lead by the 4:15 mark and rolled to a 15-point margin as the quarter ended.

Harrell, who finished with 10 points, returned to the lineup to start the fourth quarter and promptly buried his team’s first 2 shots to give Cleveland a 60-44 lead that became a 20-point margin 44 seconds later when Harris hit a pair of free throws.

It was all over but the high-fiving. And it was the low-fiving of the Cleveland guards, at least in Fairdale Coach Stan Hardin’s eyes, that really put the hurt on the Bulldogs.

“We are not allowed to hand check in Kentucky,” he said. “Our point man weighs about 135 pounds, and if you shove him, he’s all over the place. There’s no way we can get around that. We couldn’t adjust.”

Fairdale senior point guard Dwight Ingram, in fact, was held scoreless until the fourth quarter, when he scored 10 points in garbage time.

But there was some measure of consolation for Fairdale (9-3). Last year, another team from the Bluegrass State, Ballard of Louisville, finished second in the tournament, losing to Westchester. Ballard went on to win the state title.

And for the Cavaliers, the grass is greenest right here and now.

Santa Barbara 76, El Camino Real 61--In Las Vegas, a city that has made trillions out of bad habits and old vices, El Camino Real High again fell prey to its own shortcomings in a consolation game.

El Camino Real (3-4), which had been outscored, 35-12, in the first quarter of its 2 preceding tournament games--both losses--was outscored, 18-8, by Santa Barbara in the first period.

“Consistency,” El Camino Real Coach Mike McNulty said. “That’s called consistency.”

Santa Barbara (5-4), which also had lost its first 2 games of the tournament, built its lead behind sophomore forward Matt Purdy, who scored a game-high 26 points. El Camino Real, however, twice cut the lead to 7 points in the third quarter and trailed, 59-51, entering the fourth quarter.

The Conquistadores fell apart in the fourth quarter, however, making only 4 of 14 shots from the field.