REDONDO BEACH – To borrow the moniker of the guy who played on seven NBA championship teams, the St. Anthony High basketball team had its own “Big Shot Rob” Saturday night at Redondo Union High during the seventh Take Flight Challenge.
But, to modify the tag hung on Robert Horry – mostly during his three-championship stint with the Lakers – the Saints’ version should be “Big Shot Lo” after 6-foot-4 junior Lorenzo Marsh nailed the jump shots that both extended the game by a four-minute overtime and gave his team its 58-57 win over Harvard-Westlake.
It was the most compelling and noteworthy – especially relative to potential CIF Southern Section Division playoffs selections and seedings next month – of the eight games played on the second of the two-day event.
The Saints, No. 12 in last week’s BurlisonOnBasketball SoCal Top 25, improved to 18-1 but only after Marsh (pictured) got his club into OT (at 49) via his 3 from the deep right corner with three seconds remaining and after he buried another deep jumper (following a pass from sophomore Kaih Williams) from just left of the top of the key with 10.8 seconds on the game clock in OT.
The Saints got a reasonably good look from the right wing by sophomore Cameron Thrower but the jumper was off and the ball eventually was batted out of bounds with possession awarded to the Wolverines in front of their bench with .7 of a second on the clock.
Holden McRae’s inbound target was 6-10 Mason Hooks but the Princeton-bound Hooks couldn’t quite “control and tap” the ball, aimed near the rim, through the iron as the buzzer sounded and the Saints celebrated the upset of the No. 4-ranked Wolverines (15-2).
Marsh scored a game-high 21 points while Hooks had 18 points and 13 rebounds for the Wolverines, who committed 24 turnovers against the much-quicker (across the board) Saints.
The Southern Section Open Division implications because of the result are multi-tiered.
It gives Coach Allen Caveness’ Saints their most significant victory of the season and, coupled with the split in games at No. 9 St. John Bosco (a 66-57 win on Dec. 14 in the title game of the Braves’ tournament; and a 58-52 loss a week later in a non-league tilt), that will impress the Southern Section Open committee (caveat: I’m a member).
The Wolverines’ “Open resume” was already solid, largely by way of wins over No. 21 Renaissance Academy, No. 17 Damien (in the Bonita tourney final), No. 7 Santa Clarita Christian and – especially – at No. 4 Corona Centennial.
In the other game Saturday at the event that involved a strong candidate for a spot in the CIF SS Open field, No. 6 Etiwanda improved to 13-2 by smothering No. 19 Birmingham (9-5) with its half-court defense in an eased up, 75-43 decision as recently-eligible Jaylen Clark (a transfer from Centennial) dropped 17 of his game-high 23 points in the second half.
The other scores:
*Redondo 62, Los Altos 53;
*PHH Prep 67, Veritas Prep 53;
*Loyola 61, Leuzinger 55;
*Colony 58, No. 22 Taft 48;
*No. 16 Fairfax 82, Phoenix Shadow Mountain 58;
*No. 23 Washington Prep 74, Culver City 59.
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