NORTHRIDGE – It was a 77-mile drive for myself, and fellow CIF Southern Section Open Division Committee member Jerry DeBusk, to trek from the southern realm of Orange County to this San Fernando Valley community on Saturday afternoon.
All in all, though, it was worthy navigating and enduring the quasi-torture that the 405 Freeway can provide in order to watch the Windward and host Heritage Christian boys’ hoops teams clash.
The game delivered all of what one could hope to get out of a match-up of two of Southern California’s best teams and best players.
And it couldn’t have been any more of a down-to-the-wire affair, with Windward needing a four-minute overtime to edge the Warriors, 73-70.
Appropriately enough, Windward sophomore guard Dylan Andrews and his Heritage Christian counterpart, Skyy Clark, were involved – head up – in the decisive play of the overtime.
With his team trailing by a point while he tried to inbound the ball near his bench, Clark’s pass was deflected by Andrews, who recovered the ball and was fouled with 14 seconds to go.
He swished both ends of the 1-and-1 for his 27th and 28th points.
The Warriors (19-3) were able to get potential tying shots off from behind the arc by Clark and junior Luke Murphy but they were just off the iron and once last one off by Murphy was launched before the buzzer sounded.
With Clark (who finished with 38 points) and fellow sophomore Max Allen (a 6-8 transfer from Las Vegas Bishop Gorman) combining for 22 points, the hosts were up, 35-26, at intermission.
But, anchored by the dominant rebounding performance of UNLV-bound Devin Tillis (who grabbed 14 of his 17 rebounds over the final 20 minutes), and the jump shooting of Andrews and junior Jaren Harris, it took the Wildcats barely four minutes to tie the score and go ahead.
Senior post Marcus Joseph scored the final points of regulation to tie the score at 63 for Windward with 21 seconds to go after taking a nice feed from sophomore Kijani Wright.
Clark (with seven points) was the only Warrior to score in OT while Tillis (pictured), who finished with 11 points, three assists and two steals to go with his 17 rebounds, hit a couple of buckets to go with layups by Harris and Joseph and Andrews’ free throws.
Coach Colin Pfaff’s Windward squad has a challenging week coming up – to say the least.
The Wildcats (17-5) are at St. John Bosco Monday afternoon (2:20) to play Lynwood – which upset Fairfax Saturday night – in the Bosco Dream Classic.
They’re at Cal State Northridge Thursday night to take on top-ranked Sierra Canyon in a Gold Coast League affair
And the Saturday competition will be another toughie – No. 3 Corona Centennial, at Harbor College during the Rolling Hills Prep State Preview/Presented by Scorebook Live.
Heritage Christian closes its regular season with five Olympic League games and a Jan. 31 Nike Extravaganza clash with Capistrano Valley Christian at Mater Dei.
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