HOLIDAY CLASSIC : Pint-Sized Point Guard Leads Narbonne High Over Torrance, 77-66 : Prep Basketball: Narbonne will face Leuzinger in the finals Friday night for the tournament championship.

Narbonne High point guard Gabriel Maciel stands only five feet, seven inches, but the senior stood tall Wednesday night as he led his hard-working team to a 77-66 victory over Torrance in the semifinals of the North Torrance Holiday Classic at North.

Maciel scored 21 points to lead the Gauchos and turned in a strong defensive effort.

“I love my guard,” Narbonne Coach Bob Hoppes said.

Narbonne (10-3) will play Leuzinger (6-1) Friday at 7:30 p.m. for the tournament championship. Torrance fell to 4-4.

Maciel’s aggressve play typified the whole Narbonne team. The Gauchos out-rebounded Torrance, 47-27.

Narbonne “limited” Torrance guard Rick Robison to a game-high 22 points, but the Tartar star was held scoreless in the fourth quarter.

Robison scored 10 points in the third quarter as Torrance out-scored Narbonne, 25-10, and ripped 13 points off a 49-34 halftime lead.

Alternating between a full- and half-court press, Torrance forced Narbonne into bad shots and five turnovers, four of which were converted into baskets.

Behind 61-59 at the start of the fourth quarter, Torrance could not score for the first three minutes and 59 seconds of the period and did not score from the field until 3:11 remained in the game.

By then Narbonne had built a 73-62 lead and the game was almost out of reach.

“I wasn’t too worried about the comeback,” Hoppes said. “We changed some things defensively and we were OK.”

Hoppes had his players double-team Robison, who desperately attempted shots but missed many.

“We just stayed with him,” said Narbonne forward Vijay Mani, who was assigned to guard Robison for much of the night and scored 11 points, second highest for the Gauchos. “We stayed real close and stayed still if he was driving so we wouldn’t foul.”

Torrance Coach Bob Little thought Mani and his teammates played a little too close when guarding the Torrance players.

The referees allowed both teams to play an aggressive game, which suited Narbonne’s style.

“We’re a finesse team,” Little said. “We can’t bang with people. We go to Orange County and the referees call a game in the way I thought it was supposed to be played. I thought this was high school. If we get into a contact game, we’re not going to do well.”

Narbonne forwards Major Goulsby and Mike Reynolds outrebounded Torrance by themselves. Goulsby pulled down 20, a game high, and Reynolds had nine.

Torrance forward Jason Tamashiro scored 14 points for the Tartars, including 10 in the second half.

Leuzinger 65, North Torrance 63--The Olympians squandered a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter and escaped with the victory to advance to the final against Narbonne.

Leuzinger guard Adrian McCovey missed the front end of a one-and-one with the Olympians leading 65-63 and :07 showing on the clock.

North guard Mike Huang drove though the left side of the Leuzinger defense but missed a layup that would have tied the score and sent the game into overtime.

Huang hit a three-pointer with 2:58 to go, making the score 61-56 and giving the much-shorter Saxons hope.

Brian Jurado drove the key with 14 seconds remaining and hit a layup to make the score 64-62. Jurado led North with 14 points.

North used a teacious full-court press at the beginning of the game to build a 12-0 lead. Leuzinger did not score a field goal until 4:05 remained in the first quarter.

McCovey led all scorers with 24 points.