GLENDALE COLLEGE TOURNAMENT : Mistakes Cost Antelope Valley in 72-71 Defeat

It’s tough to carry out an execution without even shooting.

Trailing by one point with six seconds remaining, Antelope Valley College inbounded the ball to leading scorer Paul Ernst, who jumped and . . . threw the ball away.

The turnover was simply the last of many opportunities that Antelope Valley squandered Wednesday in a 72-71 loss to Compton in the first round of the Glendale tournament.

“That’s what upsets me more than getting beat,” Coach Newton Chelette said, “That we didn’t even get a shot off. That we didn’t execute.”

Any other ending would have somehow seemed incongruous for Antelope Valley (10-3), which blew an eight-point halftime lead and failed to make a field goal for the first eight minutes of a 26-point second-half implosion.

“We just quit executing in the second half,” Chelette said.

Former Taft High star Dedan Thomas was brilliant in the first half, scoring 12 points and dealing five assists to stake Antelope Valley to a 45-37 halftime lead.

However, Thomas went scoreless in the second half, and, were it not for some late-game heroics by Tonyu Madison, Antelope Valley probably wouldn’t have gone to the buzzer with a chance to win.

With his team trailing, 63-56, Madison sandwiched a pair of three-point shots around a three-point play to give Antelope Valley a 65-64 lead.

Steve Logan put Compton (10-2) back in front, 70-68, and the Tartars, ranked eighth in the state, held on from there.

In another first-round game:

Glendale 81, East L.A. 77--After trailing by as many as 14 points in the first half, Glendale (7-5) pulled into a 59-59 tie with 13:13 to play and held on.