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LA VERNE, Ca. – Wednesday’s second day of action in the second The Classic at Damien boys’ basketball tournament proved just how as close to evenly matched as possible that the championship quarterfinals in the top two divisions were.

Need some examples?

Here we go, starting with the Platinum (top) division:

*Santa Margarita needed an overtime to knock off Pasadena (59-50).

*The outcomes for two other winners, St. Bernard (67-66) and Etiwanda (59-57), weren’t secured into the final possessions of the respective games.

*And St. John Bosco had to rally from a 12-point deficit at intermission – and hit nine 3s in the second half – to remain unbeaten with its decision against Rancho Christian (73-66).

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LA VERNE, Ca. – A year ago, the Playa del Rey St. Bernard boys’ basketball team won just one of the five games it played in the first The Classic at Damien.

Late Tuesday night, in the final game of the first day of the second year of the event, Coach Mitch Runco’s squad demonstrated that it has stepped up in class, both figuratively and literally, in 12 months.

Runco’s Vikings – having moved from the Silver to the (top) Platinum Division – pulled off the biggest stunner in the event’s brief history, upsetting the host Spartans, 67-61.

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LAS VEGAS – Sorry for the delay in posting this but . . .

Las Vegas Gorman (69-56 over cross-town rival Clark in Platinum), Culver City of California (73-64 over Denver East/Select), Memphis Southwind (53-51 over Grandview of Colorado/Orleans), North Hollywood Campbell Hall (63-48 over Palmdale Knight/Gatorade), Compton Dominguez (54-41 over Riverside Poly/Eastbay) and Milwaukee (OR) La Salle Prep 68, Las Vegas Del Sol 55/Nike) were high school divisional champions during the sixth Tarkanian Classic.

It was the first time the Bishop Gorman Gaels have won the tournament in its six years of existence.

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LA VERNE, Ca. – The second “The Classic at Damien” boys’ basketball tournament, presented by Mark Christopher Auto Center, tips off Tuesday morning at 9:30 with a field expanded to 64 teams over four divisions.

And that field appears to be even stronger than it was during the event’s maiden voyage in 2016.

Twelve teams from the latest Top 20 Prep Hoops/SoCal rankings and 13 from the L.A. Times’ Top 25 will participating in the tournament, that culminates Saturday with the four divisional championship games that will be played on the Damien High campus.

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LAS VEGAS – Thursday’s games set up “Friday Final Fours” in each of the five boys divisions   of the sixth Tarkanian Classic.

The Best of the Best of the teams are competing in the “Platinum Division” and there are compelling matchups of each of the semifinals – each including a gifted Las Vegas program.

In the first of those, Las Vegas Clark (9-0) takes on Oklahoma’s Putnam City North (6-0) at 4:30 (PT) Friday afternoon at Bishop Gorman, with the host Gaels (7-1) facing off against one of Northern California’s very best in Richmond Salesian (6-0) at about 6 or so.

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