Faith Baptist Shooters Experience Cold Spell

Faith Baptist High, the defending Southern Section 1-A Division basketball champion, stumbled to an 0-2 start in tough Delphic League play last week, losing games to Campbell Hall and Brentwood.

The weather may have warmed up outdoors, but where the Contenders played last week, a roster-wide Arctic chill has left the team battling to get back in the league race.

In fact, if shooting percentages were converted to degrees, the Contenders were close to a full freeze-out.

Faith Baptist shot 34% from the floor in an 86-82 overtime loss to Campbell Hall on Tuesday and 33% in a 62-58 loss to Brentwood on Friday.

For the week, the Contenders made a cool 48 of 145 shots (33.1%).

“I’ve never seen our team this cold, never seen us shoot this badly,” Coach Stuart Mason said.

It even has affected Mason’s steadiest player, returning All-Southern Section selection Alex Estrada, the team’s point guard.

Estrada, a junior who is averaging 21.6 points a game and shooting 82% from the free-throw line, made three of 11 free throws against Campbell Hall.

“I’m not jumping ship yet,” Mason said. “But it’s hard to beat good teams when you shoot 33% and 34%.”

Or bad ones.

Scoring, etc.: Thousand Oaks senior Chris Loll was selected Cal-Hi Sports state player of the week after notching 91 points, 46 rebounds and 16 blocks in three Marmonte League games last week. Loll, a 6-foot-5 forward, is averaging 27.3 points, 11.3 rebounds, and three blocks. . . .

The Marmonte League trio of Loll, Agoura’s Sean Martin (26.3) and Camarillo’s David Harbour (25.7) is averaging 79.3 points a game among them. . . .

El Camino Real sophomores Markee Brown and Sam Sarpong continue to lead the team in almost every offensive category. Brown, a 5-11 forward, ranks No. 1 with averages of 12.8 points and 7.3 rebounds, and Sarpong, a point guard who played last season on the C team, tops the team with four assists in addition to averaging 11 points. Another sophomore, Canoga Park’s Steve Woodruff, is averaging 10.4 points and 8.9 rebounds. . . .

Hoover has been ahead or tied at halftime in 11 of its 15 games this season, but is only 5-10 and 0-2 in Pacific League play.

“We’re a great first-half team,” Coach Kirt Kohlmeier said. “We’re ahead for about a three-minute stint in the third quarter and then we play amoeba.”

Defense: Taft forward James Wade recorded nine blocked shots last week, including six in a 63-62 victory over El Camino Real on Wednesday. Wade has a team-high 31 blocks in 15 games.

Miscellaneous: Thousand Oaks did not touch the basketball during the second overtime of its 56-54 triple-overtime win over Channel Islands on Saturday. Channel Islands passed the ball around the perimeter for 2 minutes 58 seconds of the three-minute overtime before Brian Schimelphing threw up a hurried, three-point shot that missed.

AREA BASKETBALL TOP 10

Selected by sportswriters of The Times (Records complete through Monday’s games)

Last Rk Wk Team League Record 1 1 Granada Hills North Valley 14-2 2 2 Cleveland North Valley 12-5 3 3 Santa Clara Frontier 15-4 4 4 Notre Dame Mission 14-3 5 7 Taft North Valley 11-4 6 6 Quartz Hill Golden 13-4 7 8 Channel Islands Marmonte 12-3 8 9 Camarillo Marmonte 10-3 9 5 Thousand Oaks Marmonte 12-3 10 10 Grant East Valley 12-2