Westchester Juggernaut Rolls Past Taft, 76-62

There’s another championship basketball team playing on Manchester Avenue, and the players wear uniforms of red and white instead of the more-familiar purple and gold.

Westchester High, the defending City Section 4-A Division champion, continued to steamroller toward a successful defense of its title Friday night with a 76-62 victory over visiting Taft in the quarterfinals.

It has been a year of firsts for heavily favored Westchester, which would like to get back to the final for seconds.

The top-seeded Comets (25-2) won a league title this season for the first time in Coach Ed Azzam’s 13 years, won the L.A. Watts Games last summer, and for all intents and purposes, made believers of the Taft players.

“They are impressive,” said Taft senior guard Casey Sheahan, who finished with a team-high 17 points. “They are the best team in the City by far.”

Few in the packed house could argue.

Westchester buried Taft (18-5) in the third quarter after building an 11-point halftime lead.

Taft misfired on its first nine shots after intermission before Adam James scored on a layup with 2 minutes 34 seconds left in the third quarter. James’ basket cut the Westchester lead to 50-33.

The Toreadors led, 9-8, with 5:34 left in the first quarter, but forward Lorenzo Ball soon started the landslide.

A 6-foot-5, 230-pound senior, Ball hit three three-point baskets in the final 2:21 of the quarter to help give Westchester a 21-17 lead.

And the momentum continued to swing. Senior guard James Gray, the most valuable player of the Watts Games, scored 11 of his team-high 18 points in the second quarter while Westchester took a 42-31 lead at the half.

Gray scored on a variety of jump shots and inside moves that nobody could halt.

“That guard was awesome,” Sheahan said. “He penetrated and shot real well.”

If Taft had one last look at the game, it came with a little less than six minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. Sheahan and Miguel Carrillo (11 points) made consecutive three-point bombs to bring Taft within 62-47 with 5:42 left. Westchester more than countered with a 10-1 run to put the game on ice.

Taft withered under the front-line pressure of Ball and his mates, who measured 6-5, 6-5 and 6-9. Taft sophomore center Johnny Williams, at 6-7, held his own for most of the game, but fouled out in the fourth quarter. He finished with six points.

“We only have one Johnny,” Sheahan said. “And they had about five Johnnys.”

Taft trailed, 60-39, in the fourth quarter, but the game was long since out of reach.

Westchester made 26 of 50 shots from the field while Taft made just 24 of 72. The Toreadors made nine of 31 from three-point range.

It wasn’t just an inside job for Westchester. Starting off-guard Jason Sanders added 12 points to give the Comets a 30-21 edge in guard productivity.

It had been years since Taft faced an assault that came in similar waves, perhaps as long as two years ago, when Cleveland was chin-deep in guards. The Comets had all the appearance of a title wave, to boot.

“These guys were a lot bigger than Cleveland ever was,” Taft Coach Jim Woodard said. “We just don’t play teams like that in the Valley.”

That may be the silver lining.