BOYS’ BASKETBALL ROUNDUP : Monte Vista’s Pressure Packs a Wallop for El Camino

Coach Ray Johnson had watched his inexperienced El Camino team make youthful mistakes all season. But somehow he thought that maybe his group had purged everything out of their systems during the season.

It turns out, Johnson was only kidding himself. He lived his worst nightmare Saturday night in the San Diego Section Division II quarterfinals. An intense Monte Vista press exploited El Camino’s biggest weakness--ballhandling--and the Monarchs defeated the Wildcats, 62-58, in front of 1,500 at Monte Vista.

The victory moves third-seeded Monte Vista (24-2) into Wednesday’s semifinal against Grossmont 3-A League rival Helix at a site to be determined. The semifinal appearance is the Monarchs first since 1987 when they eventually lost to Morse, 59-51, in the 3-A championship. El Camino will not play in the finals for the first time in three years.

El Camino, which starts only one senior, turned the ball over 25 times against a Monte Vista press that would not let the Wildcat guards breath. When El Camino’s ballhandlers--Chris Dade, Bryant Westbrook and Sky Harrison--were not throwing the ball away in the backcourt, they were committing unforced turnovers in the frontcourt.

“All year long we’ve had to live with that,” Johnson said. “I thought maybe we’d get through the playoffs without that hurting us.”

Monte Vista’s Matt Ehlke said a poor ballhandling team doesn’t have a chance against the Monarchs.

“The press is what we do best,” he said. “If we don’t have our press, I don’t think we’d be that good. Like other teams practice their offense, we practice our press.”

The Wildcats’ most costly turnovers occurred at the beginning of the fourth quarter as Monte Vista went on a 7-0 run and spurted to a 49-39 lead with 6:30 remaining.

El Camino trimmed it to 49-46 as Monte Vista also had their problems taking care of the ball. Westbrook hit a lay up, Tyrone Butler made a three-point play and Dade made a lay up off a steal.

El Camino kept the margin at three until three minutes remained. But once again, the Wildcats couldn’t hang onto the ball.

Two consecutive times they turned it over, but Monte Vista had little to do with it. Westbrook traveled with nobody near him, and Dade lost the ball after dribbling off his foot.

Meanwhile, Monte Vista’s Aaron Elliot hit two free throws and a 10-foot jumper off the glass to give the Monarchs a 59-52 lead with 56 seconds left.

“It’s a good press but we made it look pretty good,” Johnson said. “We gave the ball up when we didn’t have to, and we made poor decisions.”

Marty Ellis led Monte Vista with 19 points, six in the fourth quarter, and eight rebounds. Elliot had 15 points and six rebounds, and Ehlke added 14 points and three rebounds.

Westbrook led El Camino with 18 points and Butler, a 6-4 sophomore center, had 13 points, nine rebounds and five blocks.