Despite Injured Knee, Giordano Hobbles Foes

Buena’s all-state center Michelle Giordano still feels the effects of sprained knee ligaments she suffered a month ago.

But the 6-foot-1 senior returned to action two weeks ago and has been very effective, making a crucial contribution to the Bulldogs’ effort to defend their Division I-A championship.

Last season in the final against Thousand Oaks, Giordano made two free throws with no time remaining to give Buena a one-point victory.

Giordano, who has signed with Arizona, wears a bulky brace on her right knee that she said slows her considerably and limits her mobility near the basket.

So she relies on her medium-range set shot, which is almost automatic when she is left open.

“She killed us,” Capistrano Valley Coach Pete Belanto said after Giordano scored 21 points against the Cougars in Wednesday night’s quarterfinal victory. “She shot the ball extremely well.”

TRI-VALLEY LEAGUE

Ryan’s Hope

He wasn’t particularly inspired by playing in the Southern Section Division IV-A playoffs. And he wasn’t trying to carry the load with the team’s best player sidelined. Ryan Garth turned in the best performance of his high school career simply because he was mad. Mad at school.

Garth, a 6-2 senior, scored 37 points and added seven rebounds, five steals and three blocked shots in Oak Park’s 84-70 victory over St. Joseph last week.

“I had a lot of built-up anger,” Garth said. “Things haven’t been going too right, but that was one of the best places to get it out.”

Garth confessed to having trouble with an economics class, which Coach Rob Hall said was introduced as a new requirement for graduation this year.

“I hope he gets mad again this week,” said Hall, who will need another strong performance from Garth against Crossroads tonight.

Garth said he was so high-strung all week, Hall had to harness him during practice.

“I was going all out in practice and Coach was telling me to take it easy a little,” Garth said. “During the game there were times where I knew there was no way they could stop me.”

MISSION LEAGUE

Winning Suits Him

Harvard-Westlake Coach Greg Hilliard is lucky his team is winning. He can give his wardrobe a rest.

A superstition of Hilliard’s is that if the team loses while he is wearing one of the Italian suits that are his trademark at home games, he can’t wear that suit again this season.

That hasn’t been a problem this season. The Wolverines are 24-2 and play in the Southern Section Division III-A semifinals tonight. But last season, the Wolverines were 5-20.

“I don’t have that many suits, so I had to try different combinations,” Hilliard said.

PACIFIC LEAGUE

As He Saw It

Glendale Coach Bob Davidson had his road to the playoff semifinals well mapped. After the Dynamiters beat Long Beach Jordan, an at-large entry in the Division I-AA playoffs, they had a realistic chance of beating Santa Ana Valley and Ayala and, presto, the team would be in the semifinals.

Not so fast.

The Dynamiters lost to Jordan by two points last Friday night. And it ranks as one of the tougher losses for Davidson to swallow. Glendale, normally an excellent shooting team, made one of 15 shots in the first quarter. After battling back, the Dynamiters tied the score in the final seconds, only to watch the game end in disappointment.

Glendale’s Manny Gonzalez was fouled in the act of shooting with four seconds to play, Davidson thought. The officials called for a one-and-one. Gonzalez, the team’s best free-throw shooter, stepped to the line and missed the first free throw.

Davidson had told his players beforehand: Try to get the rebound of a missed free throw, but whatever you do, don’t foul. James Fuller went straight up for the rebound, as Davidson saw it. After hearing the whistle, Fuller was clapping, thinking the call was on a Jordan player. The foul was on Fuller.

Jordan’s Chris Sykes then made both free throws at the other end of the court to win the game. “It was a heartbreaking loss,” Davidson said. “I feel like we would have beaten them nine out of 10 times.”

DEL REY LEAGUE

The Best Defense?

They say defense wins titles. They are not entirely correct.

“It sure keeps you in a lot of games, but what wins you games is you shoot the ball and make it,” St. Francis Coach John Jordan said.

Exhibit A: St. Francis loses, 41-37, to San Marino in the first round of the Division III-A playoffs last Friday night. The Golden Knights, whose defense carried them all season, allowed no points in the third quarter and only three baskets in the second half.

Although the St. Francis defense was superb, San Marino’s was better. Or at least, smarter. Knowing the Golden Knights’ offense depended on getting the ball inside to 6-foot-8 Braden Weber and 6-11 Chris Ott, the Titans played a zone defense.

St. Francis made two of 16 three-point shots.

CAMINO REAL LEAGUE

Hope Ahead

The St. Genevieve basketball team has no choice but to look forward to next season. After all, this season was a 2-17 nightmare, and one of those victories came by forfeit because Calabasas used an ineligible player.

But Coach Dan Donovan learned recently that, despite the earthquake, plans remain to build a gym at the school. It should be completed by next February, he said.

Donovan said he has no plans for his “dream gym.”

“As long as it has a wooden floor, two baskets, a ceiling and four walls, I’m happy,” he said. “Anything right now would be a blessing.”

Besides the prospect of an actual gym for a team that has been forced for years to practice at parks all over the Valley, the Valiants also can anticipate having a better basketball team. Ten players will return.

*

Donovan, by the way, would like to go on record saying Village Christian is going to beat Serra in the Division IV-A playoffs tonight.

Serra, the Camino Real League champion, advanced to the state Division IV championship game last year and is led by Duke-bound Ricky Price.

MID-VALLEY LEAGUE

Jump Start

Birmingham senior James Lincoln is hesitant to reveal his goals in the high jump for the upcoming season, but the fifth-place finisher in last year’s state championships expects to clear 7 feet before the season is over.

“I think I can go higher than that, but I don’t want to say what my goal is,” he said. “Sometimes, if you reach your goal early in the season, you have a tendency to back off. I don’t want that to happen.”

Lincoln cleared a personal best of 6-10 to win the high school competition in the high jump of the Sunkist Invitational at the Sports Arena on Saturday night before missing three attempts at 7 feet.

“I kind of psyched myself out at 7 feet,” Lincoln said of his first competitive attempts at the barrier. “I figured I’d make it, but the bar looked a lot higher than I thought it would when I got underneath it.”

Around the Leagues. . . .

* Tough day: Eight of 10 Valley area girls’ basketball teams in the City Section playoffs--including all six competing in Division 4-A--were beaten Wednesday in the first round.

Taft and Sylmar, both in the 3-A Division, were the only winners.

Last season, three area teams--North Hollywood, Kennedy and Monroe--advanced to the semifinal round. All three lost Wednesday.

* Two of the area’s most successful girls’ teams, Bell-Jeff and Village Christian, meet Saturday in a Division IV-A semifinal at Pasadena Poly.

* Jamaal Chase of Quartz Hill moved to fourth on the all-time region list in the boys’ triple jump when he went 49 feet 3 inches to win the event in the Sunkist Invitational.

Chase, whose brother Brock cleared 6-10 in the high jump for Antelope Valley High in 1991, trails Russell White of Crespi (50-6 in 1989), Ty Gaines of Palmdale (50-1 3/4 in ‘93) and Lawrence Miller of Palmdale (49-6 in ‘87).

* Quartz Hill freshman center Jackie Johnson had 50 points and 30 rebounds in the Rebels’ two Division I-A girls’ playoff victories last week. But Johnson managed only eight points in Wednesday night’s 70-50 quarterfinal loss to Mater Dei.

* L.A. Baptist’s Landon LaPack made 52% (33 of 63) of his three-point shots and averaged 16.5 points.

* For the second consecutive year, North Hollywood’s Darvena Merritt and Anna Celaya were named co-most valuable players of the Mid-Valley League.

Kennedy Cosgrove and staff writers Jeff Fletcher, Dana Haddad, Paige A. Leech and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.