Windward Boys Win Playoff Opener

The Windward School boys' basketball team beat Los Angeles Cathedral 83-65 in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division 4AA playoffs Wednesday night, but the Wildcats didn’t put the game out of reach until midway through the fourth quarter.

“We played two and a half quarters of being sloppy,” Windward head coach Miguel Villegas said.

In addition to being “sloppy,” the No. 2-seeded Wildcats (20-7) described their early performance in the Division 4AA game as flat, slow and sluggish.

“We just came out a little soft today,” said junior Nick Stover, who led all players with 24 points and 14 rebounds. “We underestimated them. We shouldn’t do that. If we just know that we can come out and beat these teams by 50 or whatever, we’ve got to have that mind-set.”

Actually, the Wildcats got off to a hot start, racking up a 21-8 lead in the first five minutes. Then they went flat. A layup by Cathedral’s Kameron McClinton sparked an 8-0 run to bring the Phantoms (9-18) within five points, and they kept it that close until almost halfway into the second quarter.

Up just 27-22, the Wildcats regained momentum on a pair of tip-ins by Stover. The first came off an assist by sophomore guard Charles Dawson. On the second, Dawson threw a deep, wild pass to senior Wesley Saunders, who barely managed to stay inbounds as he tipped it to Stover to put the ball in the hoop.

Windward went up 31-22, and from then on ensured it was always nine to 12 points ahead of Cathedral. But with the Phantoms playing aggressively, the game wasn’t out of reach until midway through the final quarter, when junior guard Luke Silverman-Lloyd hit one of his four three-pointers and gave his team a 67-52 lead. He finished with 14 points.

“Overall it was not our best game,” Villegas said. “We gave up 65 points to a team that I thought we should’ve held to 50, for sure.”

The problem, he said, was that the Windward players looked at the Phantoms' record and let down, while Cathedral fought hard.

The Phantoms also forced the Wildcats to commit a lot of turnovers early on. Villegas estimates there were about eight turnovers in the first half on fast breaks alone. “That was huge. If we converted half of those, I think it would’ve been a different first half,” he said.

Cathedral coach Sheldon McCorn said his players had a tough time dealing with the height difference—Stover is 6 feet 5 inches and Saunders, who scored 22 points, is 6 feet 6 inches. “It’s a hard situation when you’ve got that big of a size differential,” he said. “I’m proud of my kids, they showed heart. That’s all I can ask for.”

Alan Fragoso led the Phantoms with 18 points, followed by Chris Spears with 17 and Terrell Prewitt with 14 points.

Girls Basketball

The No. 1 seeded Windward girls basketball team has a first-round bye in the Division 4AA bracket. It will host the second round game Saturday against unseeded Riverside Rubidoux or No. 16 Azusa.

Soccer

The girls soccer team travels to Chino to take on Don Lugo in the first round of the Division 4 playoffs Thursday at 3 p.m. The boys soccer team, seeded No. 3 in Division 6, will host the winner of Wednesday's wild card game between Riverside Notre Dame and California City on Friday at 3 p.m.