Peninsula Takes Full Advantage

Not even Rolling Hills Estates Peninsula Coach Jim Quick could have predicted this upset.

Peninsula, which began the Southern Section Division I-AA boys’ basketball playoffs as an at-large entry from the Bay League, received a trip to Santa Maria on Wednesday for its wild-card opener, which it won, 73-46.

Peninsula was on the road again Friday to play at third-seeded Lynwood in a first-round game, which it also won, 77-68. Forward John Reed had 30 points and six rebounds for the Panthers, who will play host to Anaheim Esperanza in a second-round game tonight.

Quick said Reed took a big step against Lynwood.

“Technically, he’s a sophomore, but he’s not really a sophomore,” Quick said. “He made that jump on Friday.”

Peninsula caught a break with the absence of Lynwood senior forward Jerry-Davon Jefferson, whose suspension for disciplinary reasons continued from the regular season, when he sat out three of the last four games. He was expected to return to the team this week, if Lynwood had advanced.

“If I’m the No. 1 team out of the San Gabriel Valley League and winning all those games,” Quick said, “I might have been looking past the fourth-place team out of the Bay League too.”

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Richard Masson didn’t plan on getting too involved when he sat at the end of Carson’s bench Friday during its first-round game at Los Angeles Dorsey in the City Section playoffs.

“Then the old coach in me took over after about five minutes,” said Masson, who earned more the 500 victories at Carson before retiring after last season.

Masson was filling in for his successor, Jason Sanders, who was suspended for one game for actions stemming from a confrontation with a former player.

Masson, now the athletic director at Carson, teamed with assistant coach Wilson Labasan to direct the Colts to a 68-60 upset of the seventh-seeded Dons.

The win was especially gratifying for Masson because Dorsey had ended Carson’s season in the 2004 quarterfinals.

“It’s good to end my career with a ‘W’ rather than an ‘L,’ ” Masson said.

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It seemed to be a meaningless basket when Twentynine Palms scored off an inbound pass with seconds left to give the Wildcats a three-point lead at Duarte in a Division III-A first-round game Wednesday.

But it turned out to be very important -- to Duarte.

After a timeout with 1.5 seconds left, Duarte guard Jonathon Atkins took the inbound pass, took two steps past half court and made a three-point basket to tie the score. The Falcons then won in overtime, 81-80, when Andres Cartagena was fouled on the other end of the court and made one of two free throws with 2.6 seconds left.

“All we had to do is dribble and run out the clock, but we shoot and go up by three,” said Twentynine Palms Coach Larry Bowden about the last seconds of regulation.

“So then I tell my guy, ‘Keep [Atkins] in the front court and he won’t hit the rim.’ Lo and behold, he doesn’t hit rim, he hits nothing but net.”

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A.J. Maulhardt, a 6-foot-8 senior center at Ojai Nordhoff, was known for having his way with smaller centers in the Frontier League this season, but he hadn’t made much of a difference at the free-throw line.

That changed during a Division III-A first-round game against visiting La Canada St. Francis on Wednesday, when he made two free throws with seven seconds left to give the Rangers a 65-64 victory.

Before his final attempts, Maulhardt had made only one of six free throws in the game and 82 of 147 on the season. The Rangers made only nine of 26 attempts against St. Francis.

Nordhoff then missed six of 10 free throws Friday in a 55-50 second-round loss to Costa Mesa Estancia.