Hot Alemany Blows Past Chatsworth

Is there a better .500 team in the region?

Alemany High, which started the season 0-4, fattened up at the Valencia tournament and defeated Chatsworth, 64-53, to win the title Saturday night at Valencia.

Alemany (4-4) is unbeaten since picking up five players from the football team, which advanced to the Southern Section Division III semifinals earlier this month.

Devin Montgomery, who was running pass patterns as a wide receiver two weeks ago, is now running the Alemany offense. He scored 29 points against Chatsworth and was selected the tournament’s most valuable player.

Montgomery scored 16 fourth-quarter points, including 12 of 14 free throws.

“We’re only going to get better,” Montgomery said. “By league, we should be rolling.”

Chatsworth (7-3) had trouble converting from the outside, finishing 17 of 54 (31.5%) from the field.

“My hat’s off to Darryl and his new program,” Chatsworth Coach Fluke Fluker said of Alemany first-year Coach Darryl McDonald. “They’re very tenacious. They stay with it.”

Bryson Atkins, a free safety and receiver on the football team, finished with 20 points for Alemany, which made 19 of 21 free throws in the fourth quarter.

Atkins, who was selected to the all-tournament team, made his five fourth-quarter free throws.

“We don’t necessarily spend a lot of time shooting free throws at practice,” McDonald said. “We spend about 90% of the time practicing defense. The guys were just knocking them down tonight.”

Richard Harrison, an all-tournament selection, had 14 points and 11 rebounds for Chatsworth.

In other Valencia tournament games:

Quartz Hill 76, Hollywood 47--On the strength of 12 first-quarter points by Brady Chelette, the Rebels (8-3) jumped to a 26-2 lead and never looked back in the third-place game.

Chelette finished with 15 points.

“I had high expectations coming in, but if you’d have told me before the tournament that we’d finish third, I’d take that,” Quartz Hill Coach Bernard Nichter said.

Chaminade 59, Birmingham 49-- Cayce Cook scored eight points in the fourth quarter to lift Chaminade in the seventh-place game.

Cook finished with 16 points and Scott Borchart had 21 for the Eagles, ranked No. 2 in the region by The Times.

Jarel Hall scored 20 points and had 12 rebounds for Birmingham (1-7). Teammate Darol Taylor scored 13 points.

Chaminade made 29 of 38 free throws, Birmingham three of nine.

Littlerock 65, Ventura 52--Gene Myvett scored 20 points and had seven steals and Brandon White had 15 points for Littlerock in the ninth-place game.

The Lobos (7-2) held Ventura standout Jeff Staniland to 13 points. Staniland scored 76 points in his previous two games.