Fairfax takes down Chino Hills in championship game of the Summer Block Party

As hard as it is to conceive of, there is already talk that the 2016-17 Chino Hills High boys basketball team could be even better than its predecessor — a scary thought for potential opponents.

On Saturday night, however, Los Angeles Fairfax showed that the Huskies are far from unbeatable, pulling off a 74-70 upset in the Platinum Division championship game of the fourth annual Summer Block Party at Maranatha High in Pasadena.

Chino Hills was missing one of its best players in UCLA commit LiAngelo Ball, who sat out with an ankle sprain, but the Lions showed resilience after falling behind 12-0 and they never trailed after taking their first lead, 51-50, on a three-pointer by Robert McRae III with 12 minutes left.

Ethan Anderson had 31 points and 12 rebounds and Jamal Hartwell added 14 points and earned tournament MVP honors for Fairfax, which conquered a Huskies squad coming off several lopsided victories under new head coach Stephan Gilling and hardly seemed to miss graduate and National Player of the Year Lonzo Ball (now at UCLA) or National Coach of the Year Steve Baik, who resigned six weeks ago and subsequently took over as head coach at Fairfax.

“Our coaching staff devised a good game plan and we executed it,” Anderson said. “We have four returning varsity players and we play faster now, which helped us a lot against them.”

Harvey Kitani, who stepped down in May after 35 years at Fairfax and is now the head coach at Rolling Hills Prep, watched from the stands as his former team went toe-to-toe in the paint and on the backboards with Chino Hills.

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The Huskies set an incredibly high bar last season, scoring 100 or more points 18 times to tie a state record, winning every playoff game by at least 20 points and going 35-0 on their way to CIF sectional, regional and state titles that earned them recognition as national champions by multiple publications.

Chino Hills has four returning starters and the three on the floor Saturday all showed why they have received multiple Division I offers. Sophomore forward Onyeka Okongwu had 20 points, 12 rebounds and 11 blocks; senior forward Eli Scott had 18 points and 15 rebounds; and sophomore point guard LaMelo Ball (another UCLA commit) added 20 points and seven assists after a scoreless first half.

“They weren’t at their best, but our guys really stepped up and deserve all the credit,” said Baik, who warned his players afterward that the spotlight would be on them. “We have lots of improving to do.”

The teams will meet again at the Fairfax summer tournament next week and both are also entered in the Fairfax State Preview Classic in January at Cerritos College.