Boys Basketball: Taft beat Cleveland 66-52

After winning its first three West Valley League games by over 40 points, the Taft of Woodland Hills boys basketball team was finally challenged Friday against longtime rival Cleveland of Reseda.

However, Taft never trailed in the contest, pushed back every Cavaliers rally and came away with a tougher than expected 66-52 victory.

"A win is a win," Taft's Pierson Williams said. "We should have beaten them by more. We can't tale any teams for granted. I guess that is a wake-up call for us."

USC-bound Bryce Jones and Texas-bound junior De'Andre Daniels led the Toreadors (14-3, 4-0) with 15 points each, Williams had 12 and sophomore point guard Landon Drew contributed 11 in a balanced offensive attack.

Taft won its 53rd consecutive league game but has bigger issues to deal with going into next week.

With 5:47 remaining, Jones was whistled for an intentional offensive foul and was ejected by official Jesse Williams along with Taft J.V. coach Chris Spann and his wife for poor conduct.

Jones will not be allowed to play in Taft's next game on Wednesday against El Camino Real of Woodland Hills.

"This will be a good lesson for Bryce," Taft coach Derrick Taylor said. "We have to control our emotions. It was a total lack of maturity on Bryce's part."

Cleveland played tough and hard cutting a 15 point deficit to four on a Jaylen Bland 3-pointer with 6:02 remaining in the third quarter but could never get closer.

Taft was too big inside, ran the floor well and it's high level experience came through in the clutch.

"We didn't play well but we can still win league games when we don't have our best night," Taylor said."

Jason Johnson scored 18 points to lead Cleveland while freshman Kody Riewthong had 10 and Bland chipped in nine.

Taft went on a 9-0 run to start the second quarter to take a 30-15 lead and led 39-24 later in the second quarter before Cleveland started to chip away.

Daniels had five points during the run, Williams made a basket and Jones made two free throws to put Cleveland in catch-up mode.

"We really held ourselves down, it wasn't Cleveland affecting us," Williams said. "We have to learn not to underestimate any of our opponents."