Frank Burlison

LA VERNE, CA – The Damien High defense held the visiting Etiwanda Eagles to 30 points through, basically, three quarters of the Baseline League showdown Friday night.

But a Spartans’ turnover set the table for a layup by Alton Hamilton just a tic before the buzzer ending the quarter and cutting the hosts’ lead to seven points in front of a near-SRO crowd.

And it proved the path the Eagles (No. 10 in the BurlisonOnBasketball Top 25) needed to jump-start their offense, as six turnovers by the Spartans propelled the visitors to a 25-point fourth quarter and 57-53 victory.

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ONTARIO, CA – The annual State Preview Classic, presented by SBLive, and held at Colony High, is set for Saturday with a nine-game schedule, featuring some of the region’s top boys’ basketball teams.

Three teams from among the first 12 in the BurlisonOnBasketball Top 25 – and three more in that group – are among those in the field.

Games are set to get underway at 9 o’clock in the morning, when No. 24 San Pedro Rolling Hills (the event is the brainchild of RHP Coach Harvey Kitani) faces Hacienda Heights Los Altos.

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BELLFLOWER, CA – There are three CIF Southern Section leagues in which boys’ basketball games, at this point of the season, impact not only league championships but the makeup of the Open Division playoffs, too.

One of those was played at St. John Bosco High Wednesday night.

And the 55-30 victory over the Santa Margarita Eagles moved the host Braves a notch closer to a Trinity League title and a spot in the eight-team Open Division playoffs next month.

Depending on your perspective, a team can’t play much better defensively than did Coach Matt Dunn’s team did in improving to 20-3 overall and 5-0 in league – or much more less productively than did Justin Bell’s now 20-4 and 4-1 squad.

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MANHATTAN BEACH, CA – In a generation when the lineups of many exceptional – if not most, a cynic would suggest – high school basketball teams are heavily impacted by transfers, one Southern California squad sitting on a 20-1 record is the exception.

“I’ve got pictures at home of us together when we were 10 years old, playing in camps or on the same (youth) team,” Mira Costa High guard Will Householter said Tuesday night of he and his fellow three seniors in the Mustangs’ lineup after their 66-47 Bay League, home-court victory over Redondo Union in front of an approximate 2,400.

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SPRINGFIELD, MA – With a little more than five minutes to go in its Spalding HoopHall Classic game Monday afternoon, the Sierra Canyon High boys’ basketball team seemed primed to make the cross-country trip back to the San Fernando Valley with a whole lot of momentum going into the remainder of its Mission League schedule.

But . . . that didn’t prove to be the case.

A spinning layup by junior Isaiah Elohim with 5:24 to go gave Coach Andre Chevalier’s team a 10-point advantage (42-32) over Miami Columbus in Springfield College’s Blake Arena.

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