Trophy Leaves St. Genevieve Still Wanting

St. Genevieve High defeated Village Christian, 57-46, in the championship game of the Mojave tournament last week, but winning the tournament trophy has created a problem for the Valiants, who do not have their own gym and play their home games at Woodbury College in Burbank.

“We don’t have a trophy case or a gym to put it in,” said Coach Scott Smith, who estimates that it has been at least five years since the school won a tournament title. “I don’t know where we’re going to put the trophy. It’s sitting in the administration office right now, but we’ll probably put it in the library. It will force the kids to study if they want to see it.”

Patrick Rodriguez was named the tournament most valuable player. He and Jesse De La O, who also was selected to the all-tournament team, each scored 16 points against Village Christian.

De La O, the only returning starter from last season, scored 55 points in the three-game tournament and had eight of the team’s 10 points after regulation in a 68-65 double-overtime win over Mojave in the semifinals.

St. Genevieve has (5-3) doubled its win total from last season when the Valiants finished 2-20 overall and 0-10 in San Fernando Valley League play.

“I knew our team had good individual skills and now we’re finally starting to put it together,” Smith said. “There’s a big difference from last year. They have faith in each other when they come down the court. The team never really clicked last year.”

Weary Vikings: When Hueneme Coach Howard Davis implemented a fast-tempo, run-and-press plan this season, he considered nearly every element.

Wind sprints? Check.

Defensive drills? Check.

Turbo-powered sneakers? Check.

Schedule? Oops.

Hueneme, which opened the season with 110 points in one game and set a Nordhoff tournament scoring record two weeks ago, finally ran into a tough defense: tired legs.

When the Vikings lost, 92-74, Friday to Newbury Park and finished last in the Thousand Oaks tournament, it culminated a drastic turnaround from the nine-point defeat Hueneme handed Newbury Park earlier this season.

It also marked the Vikings’ ninth game in 13 days.

“While the game was going on, I was thinking that we were trying, but we were just physically not as quick,” Davis said. “I tried to explain to the kids that it was really my error with the scheduling. It was really stupid on my part to schedule that many games.”

Don’t count the Vikings out yet, though. They have until their Channel League opener Jan. 2 to recuperate.

“It should work out real nice,” Davis said. “We need to fix and add some things.”

And rest.

No freebies here: Westlake’s free-throw shooting woes might have cost the Warriors (2-4) two games in the Beverly Hills tournament.

Westlake missed 12 free throws in a 57-50 loss to Saugus, and the Warriors missed 11 in a 56-49 loss to Glendale.

“If we can make a free throw, we might be dangerous,” first-year Coach Gary Grayson said.

Fast Lane: Newbury Park point guard Tim Lane has shot out to a quick start, averaging 19.2 points and shooting 59% from two-point range.

“Tim came into the season tougher mentally,” Coach Greg Ropes said. “You can beat on him and he hangs in there. It’s tough to get to him.”

Another Panther who is playing well is 6-foot-3 senior forward Chris Falzone, who has averaged 19.3 points and 8.8 rebounds. Falzone had 18 rebounds in a 92-74 win over Hueneme in the Thousand Oaks tournament.

Young turks: El Camino Real Coach Mike McNulty knew there would be moments like this.

Fielding a lineup that included two sophomores, the Conquistadores (4-1) were shelled by Cleveland, 98-50, in a Northwest Valley Conference opener last week.

“Our guys were afraid,” McNulty said. “The whole key to Cleveland is their press. If your guys are timid, they eat you up.

“It would have been better for us to have played those guys later in the year, when we’ll be more experienced,” McNulty said. “But at least it’s over.”

A tall order: Faith Baptist, the defending Southern Section 1-A Division champion, has struggled at times this season, partly because of the scheduling of another sport: football.

The Faith Baptist eight-man football team advanced to the Southern Section championship game a month ago, which has slowed the progress of the basketball team. The Contenders are 6-2, with losses to Chaminade and Cathedral.

“We played our eighth game Monday and we’ve had exactly eight practices,” basketball Coach Stuart Mason said. “We went right from football into our first game, then right into a tournament.”

This is no convenient excuse. All nine of the players on the basketball roster played football, including 6-foot-6 center Peter Rasmussen, who might qualify as the tallest football player on the Valley floor.

Care to guess the football position of Rasmussen, often a shot-blocking terror on the defensive end of the basketball court?

Defensive end, of course.

Crunch time: After Hart suffered an 89-65 setback to Canyon last week--the Indians’ first loss to Canyon in the past four years--Coach Greg Herrick believes that his team is at a pivotal point of the season.

Hart (4-4), which had beaten Canyon earlier in the season, 84-83, will play three games on the road this week. The Indians defeated Antelope Valley, 56-55, on Wednesday and will play Saugus tonight and Loyola on Saturday.

“We thought we were going to be real good,” Herrick said. “I’m not alarmed yet, but if we lose all three games we’ll be 3-7. I knew our early schedule is tough, but I never would imagine that. We needed to get motivated and I talked to the team about it. Right now we would go into overtime against our junior varsity.”

Home-court advantage?: The fact that Reseda upset host Kennedy, 72-64, in a Northwest Valley Conference opener last week is surprising enough. But for Kennedy, the loss had to be upsetting for another reason.

Sure, some call the free-throw line the charity stripe, but for Kennedy, there was no charity at all from the guys wearing stripes.

In the second half, with the game still very much on the line, Reseda shot 14 free throws to just one for the Golden Cougars.

Reseda point guard James Chen made the most of his chances, making 12 of 13 free throws, including 10 of 11 in the second half. Chen finished with a career-high 22 points.

In all, Kennedy was called for 26 fouls to 11 for Reseda.

Not slow enough: Crespi had averaged 97.2 points in its five previous games, including a school-record 120 points in a win over Calabasas. So it seemed only a matter of time before an opponent would try to slow the pace against the Celts.

In a 65-62 victory over Glendale in the Beverly Hills tournament last week, Crespi needed four free throws from Rasaan Hall in the final minute to preserve the win.

However, Glendale Coach Bob Davidson said that the Dynamiters did not alter their game plan against Crespi despite losing starting forward Mike Wright to an ankle injury in the first quarter.

“He’s our best athlete and a very good player, but we certainly didn’t slow it down,” Davidson said. “We played like we do in practice. We always take 20 seconds to look for a shot. We’ll take a fast break if it’s there, but we’re not going to run into their strength.”

Statwatch: When Canyon’s Jermaine Nixon scored 32 points in a win over Hart and 31 points in a win over Downey three nights later, he became the first player in school history to record back-to-back 30-point scoring efforts. . . .

Quartz Hill set a school record for scoring in a 108-66 win over Basic of Nevada in the Boulder City (Nev.) tournament last weekend. The Rebels’ first-half total of 67 points in that game also was a school mark. Quartz Hill won the tournament title, its second this season. . . .

With his 29-point performance in Cleveland’s 110-73 victory over Mid-City Alternative on Monday, junior swingman Brandon Martin has topped the 20-point plateau in seven of eight games. Martin scored 19 points in last week’s 98-50 defeat of El Camino Real, a game in which he played sparingly in the second half. . . .

Hart’s 6-4, 230-pound junior center, Ali Peek, had 12 blocks in his first seven games.

Staff writers Steve Elling, Kirby Lee, Brian Murphy and Jeff Riley contributed to this notebook.