VALLEY COLLEGES BASKETBALL ROUNDUP : Valley Earns Share of Title With Win Over Santa Monica

Santa Monica and Valley colleges thought they had each other figured out before their third meeting of the season Monday night, but both teams brought new twists to the Western State Conference game at Valley.

Santa Monica came out in a zone defense and Valley came out with McArthur Wells.

Valley solved the zone, but Santa Monica couldn’t figure out Wells as the Monarchs (21-9, 12-1 in conference play) clinched a share of the conference title with a 62-60 victory over the two-time defending WSC champion.

Andre Harrell (16 points) sparked a 7-0 run to break a 54-54 tie with 2 minutes 50 seconds to play to seal the victory, hitting a three-point basket and a reverse layup. Wells added another three-point basket in the run.

“I can’t remember the last time I saw them ever play zone,” Valley Coach Jim Stephens said. “It was surprising. That was the last thing I would have expected from them tonight. It caught us off-guard.”

However, it was Wells, Valley’s off guard, who created problems for Santa Monica. The freshman came off the bench to score 13 points--including three consecutive three-point baskets--to help turn a one-point deficit into a 37-31 Valley lead with 3:41 to play in the first half.

“We never doubted that we could beat them,” Wells said of Valley, which broke Santa Monica’s 29-game conference winning streak last month at Santa Monica and has won two of the three meetings this season. “We beat them at their house and we didn’t want to lose in ours. We expected to win.”

For awhile, it seemed that neither team wanted to win. Trailing, 52-49, Santa Monica went scoreless for nearly seven minutes in the second half, during which time Valley increased its lead by just two points.

Mark Moten led Santa Monica (24-8, 8-5) with 20 points and 10 rebounds and Shawn DeLaittre added 13 for Valley.

Moten scored six of Santa Monica’s first 10 points and the Corsairs led by as many as seven points in the first half.