Valley Puts Brakes to Santa Monica’s Win Streak

The words “Back to back Western State Conference champions” hang prominently below the scoreboard in the Santa Monica College gym.

But any notions of “Threepeat” might be a bit premature for the Santa Monica men’s basketball team after Valley snapped the Corsairs’ 29-game conference winning streak with a 79-69 victory Wednesday night at Santa Monica. Valley improved to 3-0 in conference play, 12-8 overall; Santa Monica fell to 18-4, 2-2.

Valley had lost to Santa Monica in the championship game of the Antelope Valley tournament last month. However, the Monarchs were without the services of 6-foot-5, 210-pound forward Shelton Boykin, who missed the game because of an ear infection.

But Boykin (13 points) was back this time and made his presence felt early with a tomahawk dunk over a defender off the break and then hit a short jump shot in traffic during a 30-second span in the first half to give Valley an 18-7 advantage at the 14:22 mark.

“We were confident,” Stephens said. “We’re playing a lot better now and we’re playing together as a team.”

Valley led, 54-42, with 16 minutes remaining, but Santa Monica closed to within 62-60 with 7:40 to play on Chico Langston’s breakaway layup.

Valley’s Erik McDaniels then hit two outside jump shots and Steve Ward tipped in a rebound as the Monarchs scored six unanswered points to squelch Santa Monica’s rally.

The Corsairs cut the lead to five, 74-69, with 51 seconds left, but sophomore guard Andre Harrell hit four consecutive free throws to seal the victory.

“(Santa Monica) is a good team,” Stephens said. “They’re tough, we knew they were going to come back. They don’t give up. We had some turnovers near the end, but we we’re able to hang on.”

Ward led Valley scorers with 19 points and Harrell added 14.

Santa Monica’s Mark Moton scored 16 points and Donald Smith had 10.

Valley jumped to a 12-3 advantage after 2 minutes, 45 seconds of play and never trailed thereafter. Santa Monica cut the lead to three, 25-22, with 10:09 left in the first half, but Valley went on a 7-0 run to increase its advantage to 10 during a 2:34 span and led 45-38 at the half.

On Saturday, Valley will meet Glendale, which defeated Canyons in overtime Wednesday, 91-88.