RANCHO CUCAMONGA – If their preseason ratings and Monday night performances are the best indicators, then it would appear inevitable that the Etiwanda and Rancho Cucamonga boys’ basketball teams will meet in the championship game of the Inland Empire Tournament Saturday night.
And, if their on-court history is another solid barometer, one of those teams would seem to have reason to feel confident about its chances in that projected final.
Some 75 minutes or so after host Rancho Cucamonga improved to 5-0 with its eased-up, 97-46 win against Victor Valley, Etiwanda wrapped up the four-game “non- bracketed schedule” played Monday as part of the IE tourney in the same systematic fashion against Redlands East Valley, 74-27.
The programs are members of the Baseline League, and their campuses are separated by just a bit more than a three-mile stretch of the 210 Freeway.
But although the Rancho Cucamonga Cougars were 29-7 and won the CIF SS 3AA title last season while the Eagles experience a definite “sub-par” season — at 21-7 with a second-round Division 1 upset playoff loss at Loyola High – the “rivalry” between the programs has been a tad more than “one-sided” of late.
The Eagles have knocked off their neighbors to the west 22 games in a row, with Coach Bill Burke’s Cougars last prevailing over a Dave Kleckner-coached club on Feb. 5 of 2013, 61-59.
Only five times during those 22 games was Etiwanda’s margin of victory fewer than in double figures.
Should that Saturday night matchup take place (and each team must win three more times this week before it would be set), there is ample reason to believe it will be competitive – and then some.
The two key members of Rancho Cucamonga’s first-ever Southern Section hoops’ title, guards Shadale Knight and Aaron Glass, are back and each has improved his overall game considerably.
The 6-foot Knight (the CIF SS 3AA Player of the Year last season) and Glass (all-CIF as a freshman) scored 18 and 15 points, respectively, Monday with Knight showing off his much-improved jump shot (four 3s, three of those in the third quarter) and Glass (pictured) the evolving playmaking and passing skill that will also leave a lot of college recruiters seeing him as a “point guard” on the next level.
But this Cougars’ squad appears deeper, bigger, and more diversified (offensively) than the one Burke put on the floor last season.
The Cougars (5-0) were No. 16 in my SoCal Pre-Season ratings, and, by late February, they may have exceeded that projection.
And there are multiple reasons to believe that the Etiwanda can more than live up to – or exceed – that No. 8 projection I gave it.
Two of those are seniors Jimmy Baker Jr. and Curtis Williams – key elements for Kleckner during the Eagles’ run to the State Southern regional Open crown during the 2021 “COVID-revised” season, which closed with wins at two-time state champion Sierra Canyon and then-unbeaten San Diego Torrey Pines for the title.
Baker and 6-6 Zion Booker – on a short list of the best of the Class of 2025 in SoCal – scored 16 points apiece Monday night as their team improved to 2-0. The Eagles opened with a 45-42 over L.A. City Open Division favorite Narbonne on Nov. 19.
And Kleckner has a junior class that rivals the one that helped the program win that 2021 title as seniors – and may be even deeper in quality players than that one was.
And there’s more size, too, with senior Alton Hamilton and Booker joining juniors Channing Cade, Jedidiah Wilfred, as well as Williams (one of the best unsigned “wing forwards” in the Western Class of 2023) in the 6-6 to 6-8 range.
Should that game between the Cougars and Eagles go off Saturday, it would be just the first of three to be played between the programs this season, with Baseline League games set for Jan. 11 at Etiwanda and two weeks later at Rancho Cucamonga.
In two other games played at Rancho Cucamonga Monday:
Temecula Great Oak 54, Great Terrace 39: Senior forward Tony Sheron scored 16 points and guards Dario Johnson (a freshman) and Josh Sengstock (a junior) added 10 apiece for the victorious Wolfpack.
Murrieta Mesa 58, Rialto Eisenhower 55: Junior guard Hunter Kennedy led senior forward Ajani Reid with an on-the-money pass on a back cut that Reid turned into a layup and ensuing free throw to put his team up by a point with 21.8 seconds to go.
After Reid’s only points of the game, Kennedy followed a solo free throw by Eisenhower’s Jacob Pointer-Caldwell with two more of his own with 6.9 seconds to play.
Junior Kameron Gardner missed an attempt at a 3 that would have tied the score just prior the buzzer.
Junior forward Stanley Thomas III paced the Eagles with 24 points while senior guard Alexander Serraro led the winning Rams with 11.
Leave a Reply