Patriots Unable to Shoot Straight

Heritage Christian came in with a two-pronged plan against favorite Los Angeles Price on Friday in the Southern Section Division V-A boys’ basketball championship: slow the tempo and don’t get beat on the glass.

Slow the tempo? The Patriots, making their first appearance in a title game, ran up and down the floor with the more athletic Knights from the middle of the second quarter through the end of the game. Price capitalized time after time on drives to the basket and short jumpers.

Don’t get beat on the glass? That strategy didn’t work either. The Knights, an inch taller than the Patriots on average, won the rebounding battle by 16.

Funny thing was, Heritage Christian didn’t lose because it failed to execute its plan. The second-seeded Patriots lost because they couldn’t master the most elementary aspect of the game--putting the ball in the basket.

Heritage Christian shot 26.2% from the field--including a frigid 20.0% from three-point range--as top-seeded Price captured its second consecutive division title with a 60-46 victory at Loyola Marymount.

“We were getting open looks, we just didn’t make our shots,” said Patriot Coach Mark Berokoff, whose team finished 8 of 40 from behind the three-point arc. “When you’re a three-point shooting team and it doesn’t work, you have nothing going.”

By contrast, the Knights (30-1) had everything going. Forward Jermain Jamison cut through the Heritage Christian defense with laser-like precision, finishing with a team-high 19 points to go with 11 rebounds.

Point guard Mychal Lynch scored 15 points and Chris Alexander added nine points and 14 rebounds for a Price program that is building serious momentum.

“This is tremendous,” said Knight Coach Michael Lynch, who’s in his fourth year. “It’s doing a world of good for our program. It used to be, ‘Price, where are you located?’ Now it’s, ‘I know exactly where you are.’ ”

With the exception of guard Matt Winter, the Patriots (24-5) couldn’t locate the Gersten Pavilion basket. Winter scored 17 of his game-high 21 points in the second half, including all five of his three-pointers, many from NBA range. And he did it with a temperature of 103 degrees, according to Berokoff.

But Heritage Christian never mounted much of a threat, failing to score consecutive baskets the entire game. Besides Winter, no one scored in double figures.

The Patriots’ outside shooting was horrendous. Guard Jason Grier converted 1 of 10 three-pointers, though he did suffer a mild sprain of his left ankle in the first quarter. Guard Ryan Meyer was 1 of 7 from long distance and swingman Todd Warner 0 for 4.

Price wasn’t exactly tearing up the nets either, shooting 39.3% from the floor. Though his team struggled, Berokoff said he doesn’t expect to go the one-and-out route in the state playoffs, which begin next week.

“We’re looking at two more weeks of basketball,” Berokoff said. “We got a lot of open shots tonight. If we get that many shots again, we’ll make them.”