Brea Olinda Advances With Victory Over Inglewood

It didn’t really matter to unseeded Brea Olinda how it won its Southern Section Division II-AA boys’ basketball playoff semifinal, so the Wildcats gleefully celebrated an unlikely and somewhat ugly 50-46 victory over third-seeded Inglewood Tuesday at Valencia High.

The Wildcats (24-6) survived despite making only one field goal in the final 10 minutes to advance to the final and meet the winner of tonight’s semifinal between top-seeded Compton Dominguez and Redondo Beach Redondo Union.

Although Brea Olinda shot 33% from the field in the second half and committed five fourth-quarter turnovers, junior Landon Lewis had 12 points and seniors Chase Ulicny and Ryan Wilber each had 10.

“This is the first time ever for the Brea boys’ team to get to the final so this is big,” Ulicny said. “After we started 5-4 this season, everyone was down on us and no one thought we could get this far.

“That just fired us up even more.”

Inglewood (25-5) fired up plenty of shots Tuesday, but the Sentinels never found the range, shooting only 29% (17 of 58) from the field.

Inglewood’s Anthony Davis, who had 16 points, and Terrell Stovall, who had 13 points, helped the Sentinels rally as their rebounding edge (42-27), pressure defense and hustle brought them back.

Inglewood cut into an 18-point Brea cushion by going on a 14-0 run in a five-minute span to pull within four, at 43-39, with six minutes 49 seconds remaining.

For nearly three quarters, Brea’s plan worked as the Wildcats took control. But, then . . .

“We just kind of froze up there,” Brea Olinda Coach Bob Terry said.

Ryan Wilber’s three-pointer with 4:31 stopped the bleeding for Brea Olinda, pushing the lead to 46-39. But it was the only fourth-quarter field goal for the Wildcats and they hung on with their free-throw shooting and defense.

Ulicny played a key-role defensively, holding Inglewood’s leading scorer, junior point guard Brian Taylor, to six points. Taylor missed all nine of his field-goal attempts in the second half and made only three of 15 from the field in the game.

Said Terry: “This group of guys just knows how to pull off these kinds of wins.”