Compton Utilizes a Tough Press to Flatten Valley in Playoffs, 106-82

Richard Lee, the Compton College basketball coach, was trying to describe the full-court, man-to-man press his team slapped on visiting Valley College on Wednesday night.

First, he said his team extended pressure 96 feet, then he said it was 97 feet, then he simply said it was full-court.

The Compton court is the college-regulation 94 feet in length, but Lee can be forgiven for the inaccuracy. After all, his team took the game to a different dimension by scoring 25 unanswered points to begin the second half.

Comfortably ahead after the run, fourth-seeded Compton went on to beat 13th-seeded Valley, 106-82, in the second round of the Southern California regional of the state junior college tournament.

Compton (26-6) scored the last two points of the first half and the first 25 of the second to turn a 33-27 lead into a 60-27 cushion.

Call the outburst Logan’s run. Compton’s Steve Logan, the state’s scoring leader with a 37.8-point average, scored 15 consecutive points early in the second half.

Logan finished with 29 points, and center Kasey Brown scored 23.

Compton, the Southern California Conference champion, is second in the state in team scoring, but it was a defensive switch that proved important Wednesday.

Lee switched his team from a zone press to the full-court man-to-man to begin the second half--and the decisive run.

“It was hard to execute when they had so much pressure on us defensively,” Valley guard Rick Garrick said. “Once we got frustrated, we couldn’t get our composure back. With the defense they were playing, it was almost impossible to come back.”

Valley had 14 second-half turnovers and 24 in the game. Compton also held Valley’s big men, Russell Baldwin and Art Kirksey, to 11 and four points, respectively.

Tory Stephens led Valley with 34 points. Garrick scored 17 and helped Valley to a fast start.

Valley led, 6-0, and 19-8 with Garrick scoring 11 of his team’s first 19 points.

However, Compton tied the score, 19-19, one-third of the way through the half and never trailed.

Valley, which finished second in the Western State Conference Southern Division, finished the season at 20-13.

“I never thought we would do that,” Valley Coach Jim Stephens said of the 20-victory season. “It would have been something special for us to beat them. I just thought we would execute better offensively than we did.”