The tournament then shifts to Lynwood where everyone will take to the hardwood to prep for upcoming events in July.

Stay tuned for all results from the weekend.

It wasn’t nice it wasn’t pretty, it was an old fashioned beat down. Texas Elite was bigger, faster and on this day they were better than the boys from sunny southern cal, it was quite obvious that Team Pressure was still on Cali time or vacation.
From the start to the finish Team Texas ran by the much slower Pressure guys who couldn’t keep up as they watched their opponent get fast break layups the entire game. Pressure must quickly regroup as they get ready for a hungry Kansas team.

The second game provided little relief as the Celtics gang, jumped out to a first half lead of 31 to 9. Even being down by such a large half time deficit coach James and Else believed that they could still win. Else told his much under sized team, if we can get some consecutive stops we could chip away at the lead. The first 8 points of the second half was scored by a smaller scrappier group, the guys fought hard but eventually the clock had no tics left, final score 41to 33.

Now going into bracket play Pressure matched up against the number one seed out of Oklahoma. With another early start it took the guys took a moment to get going. When the final buzzer sounder the results were the same, one more loss for the guys from So. Cal

As the CIF Basketball playoffs come to a close, we would like to recognize Pressure alumni that made it to the Show. Congratulations to Kory Hamane, who along with his younger brother Kyle helped Flintridge Prep win the CIF Div 5AA regional title and making it to the CIF State Quarter finals. Kory’s stellar play at shooting guard earned him a spot on this years All CIF Div 5AA Team.

We’d also like to congratulate St. Bernards and Pressure Alum Danny Cordova for winning the CIF Division 5A Regional and Div 5 Southern Section Championships and moving on to represent the Southern Section in the DIV 5 State Finals!

Danny poured in 13 points but it was his outstanding defense that helped shut down Sierra Canyon guard Jahmel Taylor and secure the Div 5 Regional Championship for the Vikings.

“We worked all week on denying him the ball,” Cordoba said. “We knew Jahmel was their main scorer, and defense is my main thing. We knew where he liked to shoot from, and we always knew where he was at. Every time he wanted the ball, I closed out hard on him.” Taylor finished with four points, going 1 for 6 from the field – including 0 for 3 on 3-pointers – while committing six turnovers and missing a free throw with 31 seconds left.

Story by: Eric “Rico” Reed

Lead by senior Janell Gabb and junior Tiffany Kho, the girls program showed steady improvement throughout the season. The team competed in the 17u division for most of the season to prepare them for the month of July. The Oregon tournament proved to be a heck of a test for the girls from Cali, who showed pretty well while playing shorthanded and young.

With a few of the girls getting  interest from various colleges we’ll see what happens in the next few months as their high school season gets underway.

Behind the athletic senior Micah Shirley who was also an All-CIF Southern Section standout in football, the Guards put together a winning campaign that included a Santa Fe League championship. It was Bell-Jeff’s first league title in 13 years.

With that success, it’s not surprising that Bell-Jeff had five athletes who were honored on the all-league list. Leading the way was Shirley, who earned Santa Fe League Player of the Year honors.

“They had a really hard time stopping Micah in league,” first-year Bell-Jeff Coach Julian Andrade said. “He put up some pretty good numbers this season.

“But to have five of our guys honored is pretty unexpected. And three of those players are going to be back for next year, and I will have a year to work with them.”

Shirley averaged 16.6 points a game and scored 24 in a game against St. Genevieve on Feb. 10 to help the Guards secure the league crown.

Making the all-league first team were  junior guard Elijah Reed and sophomore guard Brandon White. Senior guard Mario Marquez and sophomore guard/forward Connor Linquist were second-team honorees.

“What really helped us this season was our defense,” Andrade said. “And three of our guys who made all-league, Elijah, Brandon and Mario, were really the ones who helped lead the defense for us.”

The Guards (12-13) couldn’t carry over their success in league into the CIF Southern Section playoffs, as No. 14 Bell-Jeff was defeated in the first round by Chadwick, 58-56.

Jeff Tully/Burbank Leader

As one player stated “it’s really difficult to make it to the finals” and have an opportunity to win, but we’re here. According to Jack Karapetyan of Dickranian “all of the long hard practice hours that was put in doing drill after drill until we got it right,” has really paid off. Working with the Pressure coaching staff and the NBA players who come to lend a hand has helped all of us from the youngest team to our oldest teams.

Dickranian vs Redlands

Jack Karapetyan, John Gukasyan and Alex all performed well and played hard but ultimately came up short to a complete Redlands team. At the start of the fourth quarter down by only 4 the Lions ran out of gas while missing shot after shot, with Redlands capalizing on every mistake the Lions made, as the final buzzer sounded Redlands had finished on top.

University sophomore’s Josh Proctor and Daquan Owens showed they can compete with anyone and for the next 2 years they’ll become a force in the city. Narbonne pulled away in the fourth quarter to turn a competitive game into a route.

Montclair Prep vs Sierra Canyon

Amir Hugo Rodriguez failed to capture his first high school championship but performed well, using some of the skills he acquired while coming up in the Pressure program seemed to serve him well. The game was finally decided in overtime with Montclair falling to Sierra Canyon.

The Spartans of La Canada with our own Ryan Lee where able to hold off a strong determined Price team from Los Angeles. This was an upset for most but not the spartans, and when it was all said and done La Canada had defeated Price 50-47.

Kory and Kyle Hamane have played together all of their lives from crib to club and now high school, while experiencing success along the way. So why would this venture end up any different and it didn’t, can you say championship. Also Jordan Whaley made his presence felt by controlling the boards, fortunately for the basketball world Jordan has accepted a football scholarship to Occidental College where he’ll be encourage to seek out contact.

Long Beach Poly vs Corona Centennial

Poly does it again; representing the Pressure family is Josh Munzon who has an opportunity to win a Southern Section Title and advance to the state championship.

Laura Mclaughlin of Chadwick played equally as hard for her high school team as she did for Pressure, but victory was not meant to be on this night. Pasadena Poly seemed to have things go right all night, championship goes to Poly.

Only a sophomore Lisa Washington and her Bishop Montgomery teammates tangled with the ladycats of Windward. On this night Windward showed that they were not going home without a championship and did enough to easily defeat a good Bishop Montgomery team.

Photo by: Cheryl A. Guerrero/Staff Photographer

BURBANK —

In fact, the Guards guaranteed their berth by winning their first Santa Fe League championship in 13 years.

For the other teams in this year’s postseason — Burbank and Providence — making the postseason wasn’t as easy. The Bulldogs finished tied for fourth in the Pacific League and were granted an at-large entry into the playoffs. The Pioneers placed fourth in the Liberty League, grabbing the final guaranteed postseason spot.

Burroughs wasn’t able to qualify for the playoffs.

With first-round games being played at 7 p.m. tonight, the three teams are hoping to advance to Friday’s second round.

Chadwick at Bell-Jeff: The Guards (12-12) garnered the No. 14 seed in Division V-A. They will be taking on a Dolphins (10-9) team that finished third in the Prep League.

“It’s really great that we get a home game to open the playoffs,” Bell-Jeff first-year Coach Julian Andrade said. “It means a lot when you can play in front of your home fans.

“We are just excited about seeing what the playoffs will bring. We have some guys that have worked very hard all year.”

The Guards have been paced on offense by senior Micah Shirley. However, the team also plays stingy defense and can pose problems for opposing teams.

“We allowed just 46 points a game in league,” Andrade said. “We have some guys who can really shut down a team’s ball-handlers.”

Andrade said those defensive stalwarts include Brandon White, Mario Marquez and Elijah Reed.

If Bell-Jeff wins its opener, it could face No. 3-seeded Montclair Prep in the next round.

Other Pressure Alumni in CIF playoffs include Kory Hamane and Jordan Whaley/Flintridge Prep, Justice Shank/Burroughs, Josh Procter/University(City Section Playoffs)

Jeff Tully   (read full article)

After a long and exhuasting weekend of play the 12u team will match up against the Santa Clarita Playmakers who bring a perfect 4-0 record vs a Pressure team who has 3-1 record of their own with the 1 loss coming to a much bigger Team Select of Arizona. The two teams will tip of Monday morning at 9:00am court D1 with the winner advancing to 1:30 championship game at Fullerton College.

BURROUGHS HIGH — After slow start, Burroughs earns 50-31 rivalry win against Burbank.

The Burbank High girls’ basketball team had a primary directive in its Pacific League game Friday against Burroughs: keep the ball out of the hands of Lisha Elsenbach.

Elsenbach, a senior, came into the rivalry contest leading the league in scoring with an average of more than 18 points. Her play helped the Indians to a first-place standing in the league.

The Bulldogs did what they set out to do, as they held Elsenbach to just five points, her lowest total of the season. But the senior wasn’t silenced by any means, as she contributed nine rebounds, four steals and four assists.

Luckily for Burroughs, other players stepped up to help carry the scoring load, as the Indians overcame a first-quarter deficit to earn a 50-31 victory at Burroughs.

Burroughs Coach Vicky Oganyan said Elsenbach resigned herself to the fact that she wasn’t going to get many scoring opportunities, so the senior tried to make an impact in other areas.

“She doesn’t care how many points she scores,” Oganyan said about the guard. “What matters more to her is that we win as a team. She is just such an unselfish player, and if she’s not scoring, she will do all she can to get her teammates involved.”

If seemed that every time Elsenbach touched the ball she had a Burroughs (16-4, 6-1 in league) defender all over her. The aggressive, physical defense employed by Burbank (12-8, 4-3) was deliberate.

“We wanted to keep the ball away from [Elsenbach] as much as possible,” Burbank Coach Bruce Breeden said. “It worked. Unfortunately, they had other players that stepped up and we developed holes in our game plan.”

Senior Chelsea Rhamdeow paced the Indians on offense, scoring 14 points. Teammate Alysia Shelmire added 10 points and Justice Shank had 10 points and four steals.

The Bulldogs were playing without starting point guard Evelyn Abrami, who suffered a broken collar bone Tuesday in a game against Pasadena.

In her absence, senior Leah Andriasian stepped up with a game-high 15 points to go along with three steals. Damarie Gonzalez added 10 points and Courtney Seidler had nine rebounds.

“It kind of threw us off not having Evelyn in there,” Breeden said. “But I thought Leah did a great job at filling in and taking up some of the slack. Unfortunately, some of other players weren’t able to step up as well.”

The Bulldogs didn’t play particularly well in the first quarter, but were still able to jump out to a 15-10 lead after one.

However, Burroughs battled back and controlled the second quarter, outscoring its opponent, 13-4, to take a 23-19 advantage into the break. It was a strong defensive showing by the Indians that forced the Bulldogs into many low-percentage shots.

“It’s all about defense for us,” Oganyan said. “We know that we are going to have to play strong defense if we want to win games.”

That defense continued to frustrate the Bulldogs in the second half, as the Indians outscored Burbank, 14-7, in the third to take a 37-26 lead into the final quarter.

The last time Burroughs won a league championship was in 1978, and that came in the Foothill League. The Indians have the advantage of playing six of their final eight league games at home.

“We’re not even thinking about that right now,” Oganyan said about a possible league title. “We just want to focus on the next game.”

For Burbank, it will try and bounce back from the rivalry loss.

“We have three tough games next week against Muir, Pasadena and [Crescenta Valley],” Breeden said. “And we’re not getting Evelyn back.”

Burbank Leader