BOYS’ BASKETBALL ROUNDUP : Kennedy Defense Stifles Peninsula’s Last Gasp

Palos Verdes Peninsula lost its first game of the season when it failed to get a shot in the final 43 seconds Tuesday night in the second round of the Irvine World News tournament at University High.

Peninsula (6-1) was trailing, 46-45, when it called a timeout with 43 seconds remaining. The strategy was to swing forward John Anthony around a screen for a shot, but when the Panthers had problems getting the ball to Anthony, they called another timeout with only eight seconds left.

Coach John Mihaljevich elected to try the play again and this time Anthony got the ball with two seconds left. Unfortunately, Anthony also drew a crowd as three Kennedy defenders surrounded him and he never got off a shot as the buzzer sounded.

“I thought John might have been fouled at the end,” Mihaljevich said. “I thought we learned a lot from this game. We threw the ball away and weren’t consistent in any phase of the game.

“Kennedy did a good job defensively with its zone. They took away a lot of things we do offensively. We never got our running game going.”

Kennedy (3-2) led the entire game, opening an 11-point lead in the second quarter when center Jermaine Galloway scored on a follow shot. Peninsula held Galloway, who has signed with DePaul University, to only 10 points but teammates Jeff Cummins (14 points) and Patrick Kunz (12 points) were more than up to the task.

“That was a very good team we beat tonight,” said Kennedy Coach John Mayberry. “We’ve got some momentum going after losing by 30 points to Santa Margarita in our first game.”

Guard Frank White of Peninsula led all scorers with 23 points, including 19 of the Panthers’ 25 points in the second half.

Kennedy will play Edison in a championship semifinal at 7:30 p.m. Friday at University High.