Rebels beat rival, win fifth straight

Erik Boal

After reaching the CIF Southern Section Division IVA semifinals last

season, and returning four starters off that squad, it came as no

surprise that the Flintridge Prep boys’ basketball team was ranked

No. 2 in the most recent divisional poll.

But just in case any opposing squad took issue with the Rebels’

position in the top 10, they had no trouble proving their ranking

Saturday.

After a 44-point drubbing of Arcadia Rio Hondo Prep on Tuesday --

in which Garrett Ohara’s squad yielded a season-low 18 points --

Flintridge Prep showed no signs of slowing down against Prep League

rival Pasadena Poly.

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BOX SCORE

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*--*

Flintridge Prep 18 18 23 17 -- 76

Pasadena Poly 8 13 11 7 -- 39

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*--*

FLINTRIDGE PREP

Barden 23, 7 rebounds and 5 assists, Beck 11, Mercer 9, Simon 8 and 15 rebounds, Wayne 7, Brown 6, Walworth 5, Nakauchi 3 and 4 assists, Melton 2, Teitelbaum 2. * Three-pointers: Brown 2, Beck, Nakauchi.

PASADENA POLY

Trotter 20, Bowman 6, Hall 4, Schoer 4, Meever 2, Pallin 2, Crum 1. * Three-pointers: Trotter.

*--*

Behind 23 points, seven rebounds and five assists from Ramses

Barden, and great support from Andrew Beck, Mike Simon and Tim

Mercer, the visiting Rebels recorded their highest scoring output of

the season en route to a 76-39 victory, their fifth straight.

“It’s nice to score as we did, and it was nice to see [point

guard] Nathan [Walworth] be able to do some good things in terms of

getting people involved,” said Ohara, whose squad (10-5, 3-0 in

league) built on a 36-21 halftime lead by outscoring the Panthers,

23-11, in the third quarter.

“And even when we went to our bench, it was good to see so many

people contributing.”

Against a Panther squad that dropped to 3-11, 0-2, such a

lopsided result didn’t surprise Ohara.

But the fifth-year coach knows that the road is only going to get

tougher for his squad, which is why he expressed his frustration with

Pasadena Poly freshman Jabbari Trotter scoring 20 points against a

Rebel defense that held Rio Hondo Prep’s leading scorer, Landon

Goodwell, scoreless in Tuesday’s win.

“Twenty points for Trotter, that just killed me. We were [jumping]

on pump fakes and trying to block too many shots,” Ohara said.

“They made some shots off some things we haven’t been giving up

[in our previous four wins], so we need to continue to work on

getting it done defensively. But our goal was to try to keep them

under 40, and we did that.”

Flintridge Prep overmatched Pasadena Poly from the outset, scoring

16 of the game’s first 18 points, including six by Barden.

The 6-foot-6 senior had accumulated all of his points through

three quarters, but it was the efforts of Beck (11 points and three

assists), Mercer (nine points and five rebounds) and Simon (eight

points and a game-high 15 rebounds) that helped the Rebels -- who

also received seven fourth-quarter points from Jeff Wayne --

continue to build their lead.