NORTH HOLLYWOOD TOURNAMENT : Grant Slows Jones, Wins North Hollywood Title

Grant High played Scrooge with North Hollywood’s Dana Jones on Saturday night as it claimed the championship of the North Hollywood tournament.

Give Jones a good shot? Bah, humbug!

The Lancers, in a stop-Jones-at-all-cost effort, shackled the Huskies’ celebrated 6-foot-6 senior center, holding him to a strangely insignificant game-high 15 points en route to a 54-43 victory.

Jones’ point total was deceiving. He did not score until he made a free throw with 3:52 to play in the second quarter. Moreover, while Jones was five of seven from the field, he made just five of 11 free throws and missed the front end of three one-and-one situations.

Hence the Lancers (7-0) were more than willing to keep sending Jones to the line. Whenever the ball met his hands, so too did a forearm--usually attached to center Brunell Mori or guard Jo Jo Halberstadt.

“We were just trying to stop him,” said Mori, who fouled out with four points and two minutes to play. “He’s a great player. Their whole game is based on him. By stopping him, we stopped their whole team.”

North Hollywood Coach Steve Miller, whose Huskies (9-1) entered the game ranked No. 1 in The Times’ Valley poll ahead of No. 2 Grant, agreed.

“There were two keys to their win,” he said. “They stopped Jones and we couldn’t hit from the outside. I don’t know what our free-throw shooting was--I’d have to look at the score book--but I think we missed the front end of six one-and-ones.

“The best team won tonight.”

Grant forward Rene Delahoya, an unlikely tournament most valuable player at 6-foot-2, 140 pounds, proved to be the game’s most effective player.

Delahoya, who tied forward Setro Terzian with a team-high total of 13 points, controlled Grant’s pace on offense, pestered Jones when he put the ball on the floor and capped two steals with length-of-the-court drives resulting in thunderous slam dunks.

“We got great play out of our seniors,” Grant Coach Howard Levine said. “North Hollywood is dynamite. We just caught them on an off night.”

Grant ran off 10 points in a row to take an 11-6 first-quarter lead. Delahoya scored five points and Terzian added four.

By halftime, North Hollywood had cut the gap to 21-19.

Jones’ first field goal came on a two-handed dunk with 2:15 to play in the half.

Grant built an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter on a pair of free throws by Terzian.

Jones scored eight points in the fourth quarter, but Grant successfully dribbled time off the clock in the final two minutes.

“They did a good job,” Jones said. “They just played harder. But we didn’t get any offensive rebounds.”

In other games:

Reseda 69, El Camino Real 54--Guard Mike Basowski scored 19 points to lead Reseda to a third-place finish.

Mike Hawkins (14 points) and Marquis Wilborn (12) also scored in double figures for the Regents (2-4).

Allen Chenen scored 18 points to lead El Camino Real (2-4) and teammate Bert Mitchell scored 10.

Granada Hills 73, Chatsworth 60--Junior guard Sagy Koren scored a game-high 26 points and senior guard Jermoine Brantley added 21 to pace the Highlanders (5-5) to the consolation championship.

Koren made six of 11 three-point shots--including three in both the first and fourth quarters--and Brantley scored 12 points in the second half as Granada Hills increased its 34-28 halftime lead.

Darryl Porter led Chatsworth (3-2) with 17 points.