Eisenhower comes up short in Torrey Pines final

Here’s is correspondent Tim Scott’s story on Eisenhower boys basketball’s game in the championship game of the Torrey Pines Tournament from Tuesday that was too late to get into Wednesday’s paper.

 

By Tim Scott
Correspondent
SAN DIEGO — After a Creighton-like run to the championship game of
the Maxpreps Holiday Classic, the Eisenhower High School boys
basketball team bowed out with a 58-54 loss to Bellevue (Wash.) on
Tuesday night at Torrey Pines High School.
Creighton, of course, is the college standout guard Andrew Bock has
committed to play for next season. The Blue Jays have scored their
share of upsets in March’s NCAA Tournament, and Bock’s high school
team from Rialto toppled plenty of high profile sides at Torrey Pines.
Playing in the tournament’s top National Division, Eisenhower
defeated a Rocklin team which is sending its best player, 6-foot-10
Brendan Lane, to UCLA, and notched a semifinal victory over a San
Diego side featuring Louisville-bound Jeremy Tyler, another 6-foot-10
talent.
The Eagles don’t have a player over 6-foot-4 on their roster, but it
didn’t show, even in the final against Bellevue, which featured a
talented frontline duo of 6-foot-7 Colton Christian and 6-foot-5 Alex
Schrempf, the son of former NBA standout Detlef Schrempf.
Trailing 24-20 at the half, the Eagles (11-2) rallied back with a
23-13 third-quarter surge that put them ahead by six going into the
fourth quarter. Eisenhower held a five-point advantage with 3:10
remaining, before Bellevue (9-1) began its late-game push.
The high-low offense Bellevue had been running throughout the night
looked better in the last two minutes that at any other point, as
Christian found Matt Olson underneath for an easy lay-in to tie
things up at 54-all with just 1:30 left.
Free-throw shooting, an Eagles strong suit after they made 10 of
their first 11 on Tuesday, finally hurt Eisenhower when Bock couldn’t
convert the front end of a one-and-one situation.
Bellevue countered with more high-low action, as Christian found
Schrempf for an easy lay-up this time, giving the Wolverines a
two-point edge.
Eisenhower missed a 3-pointer on its end, then caught a break when
officials waved off a Bellevue put-back that would’ve spread the
margin to four with less than 20 seconds remaining. After a few tense
timeouts, when Eisenhower had trouble inbounding the ball, Bock drove
the length of the court but watched his runner along the right side
of the lane come up short.
Aaron Bright, the opposite side of a good point-guard battle all
night with Bock, made two free throws to seal the outcome.
Bock,an all-tournament selection, finished with nine points, tying
for team-high honors with his brother, Bryan. Kirby Gardner and Alex
Varner had eight points each. Bright led Bellevue with 18 points,
while Christian and Schrempf had 15 points each.