LA VERNE, Ca. – Some of Southern California’s better teams were on display Saturday at Damien High – nine days before the Nov. 18 start of the real boys’ high school basketball season.
Damien’s “Pre-Season Shootout” included eight games involving eight programs, with Mark Keppel (Alhambra), Oak Park, Oaks Christian (Thousand Oaks), Servite (Anaheim), Colony (Ontario), Calabasas, Chaminade (West Hills) and the host Spartans playing twice apiece.
Oak Park played in the day’s first two games, vs. Keppel and Oaks Christian, winning both behind the near-stunning offensive display of University of Pennsylvania-bound guard Clark Slajchert, who averaged 30.4 points per game as a junior.
Based on his performance Saturday – I didn’t track stats, nor was a scorebook kept, but he may have hit right at 40 points in each of the games – Slajchert (pictured) average whatever Coach Aaron Shaw’s Eagles need him to score in order to have a chance to win every game they play this season.
Oaks Christian, which lost to Colony in its second game, has a quality junior point guard in Hercy Miller.
Mark Keppel, beaten by Servite in its second contest (one of the better ones of the day), was 22-7 while also capturing the Bronze Division title during the Classic at Damien last December.
Led by a couple of exceptional seniors, guard Laird Anderson Jr. and post Diego Bustillo, the Aztecs appear capable of making a deep run in the CIF Southern Section 3AA playoffs.
Servite knocked off Calabasas in it second game, in large behind the play of – IMO – the No. 1 sophomore in Orange County, guard Tajavis Miller (who put on a jump-shooting display to rival that of Sljachert), as well as a 6-3 junior that I think will be an all-Trinity League player this season, Andrew Cook.
The Friars, too, could make a deep run in the 3AA Southern Section playoffs.
The Colony Titans burped away a 10-point advantage in the second half before losing to Chaminade in a two-minute overtime, 77-74.
Coach Jerry DeFabiis’ program won the Southern Section 2A title last spring and went to Sacramento before losing to Campolindo (Moraga) in the State Division II title game.
His best player, Sedrick Altman, is a freshman at Pepperdine now but the Titans – led by juniors Brenton Knapper and Denim Dawson – were elevated to Division 1 status by the Southern Section and could make a run in those playoffs, too, this spring.
Knapper and Dawson were often spectacular Saturday – there may not be a better pair of dunkers on any Southern California team – and DeFabiis’ freshman group also consistently impressed in both games.
There may not be a better Class of 2023 point guard anywhere in the west than Kylan Boswell, and classmates Kollen Murphy and Jadyn Simpson converted a bunch of jump shots while 6-foot-5 – and growing – Denzel Hines looked as if he could be quite the low-post force before too deep into the season.
The Colony-Chaminade clash seemed of the caliber of game we could see in, say, the second- or even-quarterfinal round of the Southern Section D-I playoffs in February.
And the final game of the day – Chaminade vs. Damien – fit that description quite nicely, as well.
Chaminade’s perimeter of juniors K.J. Simpson, Keith Higgins III and Colin Weems (a transfer from another Mission League program, Crespi, who must sit out the first 30 days of the season before becoming eligible for the Eagles) sizzled in the rally against Colony and was every bit as impressive against Damien.
Simpson (like Knapper, one of the half-dozen or so better point guards in the western Class of 2021) consistently penetrated and found Higgins and Weems in both games, and the duo responded by repeatedly converting deep jumpers.
Another reason Coach Bryan Cantwell’s squad is going to one of the most difficult in SoCal to defend this season is the present of a 6-10 senior in the post, Abe Eagle, who was a force down low as both scorer and rebounder in each game Saturday.
Damien consistently led by from six to eight points much of the 25 minutes or so (the game was played with 16-minute halves) before the Simpson-Higgins-Weems trio helped their team tie the score at 64 with about six minutes to go.
But the Spartans’ own perimeter performers, notably senior Austin Cook, junior Malik Thomas and sophomore R.J. Smith, were more than up to the task down the stretch to lead their team to the 88-81 victory.
Each of the three (especially Cook) knocked in jumpers or converted layups, either out of the team’s half-court offense or conversions after offensive rebounds.
The 6-3 Thomas closed things out by way of a couple of defensive rebounds and a crunching dunk.
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