North Hollywood Stumbles Again : Basketball playoffs: Favored Huskies lose in early round for third year in a row, falling to Dorsey, 66-65.

For the third consecutive year, North Hollywood High waltzed through league and conference play without a defeat only to be eliminated in the preliminary rounds of the City Section playoffs.

Dorsey trailed for nearly 3 1/2 quarters, but once the Dons claimed their first lead, they never relinquished it and held on to upset the Huskies, 66-65, Wednesday night in a first-round game of the 4-A Division playoffs.

“We knew we were in for a tough game,” North Hollywood Coach Steve Miller said.

The Huskies (17-6), who this season traveled to Anchorage and Las Vegas to play in highly competitive tournaments in order to better prepare themselves for the postseason, were eliminated by the Dons (13-10) for the second time in as many years.

Dorsey beat the Huskies, 64-61, in overtime in a quarterfinal game last season.

Given the option, North Hollywood would have loved to go to overtime this time, but the Huskies simply couldn’t catch the Dons in the fourth quarter.

With North Hollywood trailing by two points, Fantasia Johnson (12 points) was forced to foul Sherwyn Morgan at midcourt with 41 seconds left. It was Johnson’s fifth foul and he became the second Husky starter to foul out.

Morgan, who scored 12 points, went to line and buried two free throws to extend the Dons’ lead to 66-62.

With Johnson out of the game, it was up to guard Arthur Lee to lead the Huskies’ comeback try. Lee, who finished with 21 points, buried his fifth three-point basket of the game with 26 seconds to play to pull the Huskies to within 66-65.

North Hollywood tied up the ball on the Dons’ ensuing inbound pass and gained possession just five seconds later. The Huskies wanted Lee to take the final shot, but the Dons were not cooperating.

Lee fired an 18-foot shot from the wing with five seconds left, but Dorsey’s Terrell McKnight and Ricky Blackmon were covering him well and Lee’s shot bounced off the back of the rim and into Morgan’s hands.

Blackmon scored 17 of his 27 points in the second half. Blackmon and Morgan were the only Dons in double figures.

Meanwhile, the Huskies panicked in the fourth quarter, allowing Dorsey to take a 60-55 lead on an 11-0 run to open the period. The Huskies were scoreless in the final quarter until Lee hit a three-point basket with 4:39 to play.

Damon Ollie, a 6-foot-5 center and one of the area’s top recruits, played outstanding in his final high school game, but his 20 points, 16 rebounds and five blocked shots were not enough to get the Huskies past the first round.