Frank Burlison

ONTARIO – Six-foot-five senior Nick Giarrusso scored 12 of his team’s 16 fourth-quarter points Saturday evening to help Crean Lutheran knock off another Orange County-based program, JSerra, 59-52, in the CIF Southern Section Divison1 basketball championship game in the Toyota Arena.

The Lancers (26-7) – who lost to eventual Division 1 champion Los Alamitos in the 2025 semifinals – led from midway through the first quarter before the Lions (23-13) went ahead, 50-49, via a 3-ponter from senior Hunter Frates with 2:10 to play.

Six-eleven, University of Minnesota-bound Chadrack Mpoyi, caught a tipped pass from reserve forward Bryce Coleman, laid the ball in well above the rim while being fouled and converted the free throw to put Crean Lutheran back up by two points 14 seconds after Frates’ 3.

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AZUSA –  How do you win a basketball championship game while shooting just 30 percent from the field, including 22 percent from beyond the 3-point arc?

With grind-you -own defense, baby – and some well-beyond “determined” offensive rebounding generously sprinkled into the mix.

The Colony High Titans of Ontario used a 22-5 run over a nine-minute stretch of the first and second quarters and never allowed the Trabuco Hills Mustangs of Mission Viejo to get closer than five points (with 4.7 seconds to go) after intermission to prevail in the boys CIF Southern Section Division 4 finale, 51-44, Friday night at Azusa Pacific University.

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LONG BEACH – By the time the two-day, Pangos Junior All-American boys’ basketball camp wrapped up with the “Best of the Best” game Sunday afternoon at McBride, High there wasn’t much mystery as to the identity of the two best players in the 14^th annual event.

Eighth- and seventh-graders Omar Muhammad and Braylin Calhoun (pictured, left to right) shared camp Most Outstanding Player honors in a camp that attracted 130 or so middle-school aged hoopers – and a cluster of fifth- and sixth graders, too – from 14 states and Canada.

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REDONDO BEACH – A high school boys’ basketball team that wouldn’t have been in the CIF Southern Section Open Division  playoffs if the field had not expanded to 12 now finds itself just one win away from the championship game in Ontario’s Toyota Arena next Saturday.

Coach Randy Oronoz’s La Mirada Matadores – trailing by five points with just less than fourth minutes to go in the fourth quarter with their best player on the bench with five fouls – outscored host Redondo Union, 16-8, the rest of the way to pull off the 73-70 upset in an Open Division quarterfinal in front of a nearly capacity crowd.

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RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA – The Harvard-Westlake High boys’ basketball team turned in its most impressive performance of the season – and collected its most significant road victory in three seasons – in a 21-point decision against the CIF Southern Section’s Open Division No. 2 seed, Santa Margarita, Tuesday night.

The Wolverines’ 83-62 decision, propelled by an 11-point third-quarter advantage following a deadlocked first half, gave Coach David Rebibo’s squad (24-5) a 2-zip record in Pool B, and a home game against another Mission League team, Crespi, in a Friday night Open quarterfinal.

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