Frank Burlison

REDONDO BEACH, Ca. – The St. John Bosco Braves may yet prove to be the best basketball team in California.

But, on Friday afternoon, they weren’t the best team in their semifinal of the 62nd Pacific Shores Tournament at Redondo High.

Despite a building a lead that once reached 13 points, the Braves couldn’t cope with the overall quickness and determination of the much-smaller Mayfair Monsoons, 60-56.

After struggling in the first half, Ocean View transfers Dillon Reise and Kendall Small scored 13 and 12 points, respectively, for the Monsoons with all of Reise’s points coming in the second half.

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  NEWARK, Ca. – The seventh annual Nor Cal Tip-Off Classic, a seven-game affair, gets underway Saturday morning at 11 o’clock at Newark Memorial High.

The school’s campus is located at 39375 Cedar Boulevard.

Headlining the field is Oakland Bishop O’Dowd, led by its terrific 6-foot-9 junior Ivan Rabb.

The Dragons take on one of the best teams in Fresno, Bullard, with a schedule 8:30 p.m. tipoff.

The complete schedule:

  11 a.m., Fairfield vs. Castro Valley; 12:30 p.m., Pleasant Hill College Park vs. Stockton St. Mary’s; 2:15, Brentwood Heritage vs.

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  Action in two of the better pre-Christmas high school tournaments in the west continues today in Redondo Beach and Corona.

  PACIFIC SHORES

At Redondo High

  Loser’s bracket consolation: (both auxiliary gym) Noon, Peninsula vs. Morningside; 1:30, Palos Verdes vs. Rolling Hills Prep.

Fifth-place semifinals: (both main gym) 12:30, Long Beach Millikan vs. Compton; 2, Campbell Hall vs. Long Beach Poly.

Consolation semifinals: (both main gym) 5, Pacific Hills vs. Lawndale; 6:30, Calabasas vs. Narbonne.

Championship semifinals: (both main gym) 3:30, St. John Bosco vs. Mayfair; 8, Westchester vs.

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CORONA, Ca. – Both the host Corona Centennial Huskies and the Etiwanda Eagles demonstrated they are very good teams during the first two days of the second Tip-Off at the Empire Invitational.

The tag to that sentence, of course, is: “As if anyone who follows high school basketball in Southern California didn’t know that already”.

OK, but just how good are the teams coached by Josh Giles and Dave Kleckner, respectively?

The Huskies (83-24 over Bakersfield East) and Eagles (61-47 over a game- and 3-point-shooting Great Oak squad) each improved to 2-zip Wednesday night and, minus stunners Friday – when the Huskies take on Fresno Central and Etiwanda tangles with Ranch Verde – should hook up in the championship game Saturday night at 7:45.

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REDONDO BEACH, Ca. – Each of the 62^nd Pacific Shores Tournament championship quarterfinals played Tuesday at Redondo Union High was reasonably competitive – even if none of them proved to be down-to-the-wire affairs.

Top three seeds St. John Bosco (over Long Beach Millikan), Los Angeles Westchester (over Long Beach Poly) and host Redondo (over North Hollywood Campbell Hall) prevailed by 14, 12 and eight points, respectively Tuesday.

Only fifth seed Lakewood Mayfair (over fourth seed Compton, 75-66) provided an element of “surprise” to Tuesday’s proceedings.

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