Windward Boys Hoops Advance to CIF Semifinals

The Windward boys basketball team opened up their quarterfinal playoff game against El Segundo by giving up two easy layups on the first three possessions. But that was pretty much their only flaw all game, which ended with them beating the Eagles 86-57.

“Other than that, I think we picked it up, were really good to go,” said Coach Miguel Villegas. In recent games the coach had lamented some aspect of the team’s play, particularly its rebounding. However, he was all smiles  after the CIF-SS Division 4AA game Windward hosted Tuesday night. “We got out, we hit some shots early, we rebounded the ball, which I always say is a big key for us. We played good defense.”

The Wildcats (22-7) looked solid. They converted on fast breaks, tipped in missed shots and found the open man. The team built its lead to 46-31 by halftime and by the end of the third quarter had a 25-point lead.

In the first minute of the final quarter, sophomore guard Jordan Wilson scored five straight points – he twice sliced through traffic to make a layup, and converted on a free throw – to give the Wildcats a 73-45 lead, and Villegas took out four of his starters and let the bench play.

 “We knew we were the better team and we came out and showed that early and took away [the Eagles'] hope early,” said junior guard Luke Silverman-Lloyd, who scored 16 points, four of them off three-pointers. “We knew what they were gonna do out there and I guess we just came prepared and shut down their style of play.”

The Eagles (19-11) likewise knew what the Wildcats liked to do, but were unable to stop them.  “They did what they wanted to do; we didn’t do what we were supposed to do,” said El Segundo Coach Rick Sabosky. “It takes a lot to beat that good of a team and we were less than perfect tonight.”

He added, “We didn’t block out 23 or 11,” – a reference to Windward’s 6’6” senior Wesley Saunders and 6’5” junior Nick Stover – “so they owned the boards and the inside. That was something we worked on hard.”

Stover led all players with 23 points, while Saunders was second with 19 points, including making 9 of 13 free throws.

Sabowsky noted that his team doesn’t get to practice against players of Stover and Sauders’ caliber. “When we’re playing superior talent, we’ve got to be fundamentally and completely sound and we weren’t,” he said. “Jump stops, back-door cuts, we didn’t run our stuff with any continuity – all those things hurt us.”

El Segundo came with a dedicated fan base – cheerleaders and the yellow-T-shirt-clad “Ruthless Rooters,” who took over one-quarter of the gym and taunted Windward players with cries of “air ball!” and “In your head!” when they were at the free throw line.

“We were definitely rattled by that in the beginning in warm-ups…they had probably 50 people over there,” Silverman-Lloyd said. “But our goal was to make them quiet early so that we could just play our game without having to have them in our ear and I think we did a pretty good job of that.”

Senior guards Ahmed Mahmood and Brandon Reynoso led El Segundo with 11 and 10 points, respectively.

Windward, No. 1 in the CIF-SS Division 4AA rankings, now advances to the CIF-SS Division 4AA semifinals to play No. 3 Alemany on Friday at a neutral location still to be decided. The Warriors (20-10) defeated Bishop Amat 85-59 on Tuesday night.

Girls basketball

Windward’s girls team (22-4) will host Atascadero (17-8) on Wednesday at 7 pm in the quarterfinals of the CIF-SS Division 4AA playoffs.