Quality Teams Fill Glendale Tournament

It’s tournament time in Glendale, a great opportunity for Coach Brian Beauchemin to schedule a few patsies for the Glendale College basketball team.

Beauchemin, however, has gone grinch on his Vaqueros.

The eight-team, double-elimination tournament begins tonight with seven of participants sporting records over .500.

Antelope Valley (10-2), ranked 12th in Southern California by the JC Athletic Bureau, plays fourth-ranked Compton (9-2) tonight at 6 p.m. and Glendale (6-5) plays East Los Angeles (5-7) at 8 in first round games at Glendale College.

College of the Canyons (5-5) plays 10th-ranked Los Angeles Harbor (10-4) and 13-ranked Valley (6-3) meets sixth-ranked Cypress (8-1) in other first-round games Thursday night.

“It’s a well-stocked tournament,” Beauchemin said. “I expect every game to be knock down, drag out.”

Antelope Valley is coming off a championship performance in last week’s Golden West tournament where the Marauders dealt Cypress its only defeat.

Antelope Valley is led by freshman point guard Dedan Thomas, the catalyst for the Marauders’ up-tempo offense. He averages 12.3 points and 10 assists a game.

Glendale is sparked by a quartet of sophomores that includes guard Bruce Heicke (16 points per game) and forwards David Swanson (16), Justin Lord (15.5) and Gary Fowler (14.5).

Sophomore guard Steve Valenzuela (18 points) and forwards Larry Albritton (17) and Aaron Clark (17) are Canyons’ top scorers.

Shelton Boykin, a transfer from Texas-El Paso, is the key player for Valley, a team which features a number of talented sophomores, including Steve Ward, Cliff Barnes and Shawn DeLaittre--none of whom played for Valley last season.

“We haven’t gelled,” Valley Coach Jim Stephens said. “We have a lot of sophomores, but this is the first year they’ve played together.”

Second-round games will be played Friday with the championship round to be played Saturday.