Basketball Roundup: Glendora can’t keep up with Etiwanda in Baseline opener, loses 56-35

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By Aram Tolegian, Staff Writer
GLENDORA - Etiwanda High School’s boys basketball team came out firing with five 3-pointers in the first quarter of its Baseline League opener at Glendora and never looked back in a 56-35 victory on Tuesday night.

The Eagles, last year’s league champions, rode super sophomore Jordan McLoughlin’s game-high 22 points to their 13th consecutive win and improved to 16-1 overall and 1-0 in league. Glendora fell to 12-5 overall and 0-1 in league.

Glendora rarely has been at full strength this season, which may have cost the Tartans critical time to get where they needed to be in order to stay with the likes of Etiwanda, which is one of the top teams in the Southland. But Tartans coach Mike LeDuc refused to say his team’s injury woes had anything to do with its poor showing Tuesday.

“Etiwanda is incredibly talented and we have to play really well to compete with them,” LeDuc said. “We have to shoot very well to play with them and tonight we didn’t shoot well. And they shot very well. When that happens, we’re going to have a hard time competing.

“I don’t want to make excuses. We have to get better. Just because we’ve had incredibly bad luck with injuries this year it’s only an excuse if I use that. And I don’t want to use that. I don’t care if it’s the first game of the year, people are expecting them to be ready and we didn’t play well tonight.”

Girls Basketball Roundup
Baseline League
Etiwanda 62, Glendora 16
Brianna Johnson scored 19 points to lead Etiwanda. Amanda Sifongkham chipped in with four points for the Eagles. The Tartans (11-6, 0-1) were led by Casey Lowden with six points.


Etiwanda increased its advantage to more than 20 points in the second quarter on a follow by Sam Flemming. Glendora didn’t score its first field goal of the quarter until Alex Pink’s basket with 2:15 to go before halftime.

Glendora gave a faint and brief sign it may get back in the game when Wesley Burke started the second half with a 3-pointer, but McLoughlin answered with a 3-pointer of his own on Etiwanda’s next possession. McLoughlin later added a dunk on a fast break.

McLoughlin scored 10 points in the third quarter.

“McLoughlin hit like three 3′s in a row in the first quarter, and I thought that was really big,” Kleckner said. “We came in here expecting to play our best game in order to beat this team on their own home court. So, I’m really proud of the way our guys played tonight.”

Glendora’s go-to man Nick Colletta, who led the team in scoring last season as sophomore, was limited to just six points Tuesday. Colletta was the Tartans’ most notable injury this season, missing several games with a back condition. LeDuc estimated that Colletta returned to full strength only last Thursday despite seeing action in late December.

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  • EyeOnTheBall

    it was strictly business for the ETIWANDA on tuesday night. outside of maybe the last 2 and half minutes, when the game was clearly in-hand, the eagles were near perfect. ETIWANDAs athletically disciplined-suffocating defense kept glendora off balance all night. im sure GLENDORA knew going in, that ETIWANDAs defense could make it a rough night, but when the eagles connected on their first 5 3pt FGs,(17-11 after 1) and stretched the traditional match up zone into a swiss cheese’ish 1.3.1, that just added the proverbial “salt”…offensively, i dont recall any bad shots taken by ETIWANDA, and maybe 2 or 3 questionable shots. good ball movement. not one player pounding the ball/shot clock into submission. off ball cutting/diving into the zone. gapping to create for each other, which intern, led to open 3pt fg attempts and some cushy driving lanes. the eagles finished 9-13 from behind the arc(correct me if im wrong et.statisticians) all of them coming from inside-out or clean spot ups off ball movement. typical ET on the defensive side. disrupting the usually precise GLENDORA offense by clobbering guys off ball(cleanly. in hoop terms), beating them to spots, and just when you think someone is caught in the barrage of down screens, they come flying(pun intended if you like) through with a strong close out to take away the spot up,force a tough shot off dribble(which is not the tartan way in most cases) or force the pass to the next option. when athleticism is molded into fundamental defense, it is a thing of beauty. from what i was told, this was the first game back for the TARTAN alpha-dog #4. and it showed. he was 0-the night(correct me if im wrong G statistcians) and at times, tried to do too much. and that can get you in serious trouble vs a team like ET, who feed off forced offense. i think this could be a closer game next go around, due to the fact he will have his feet under him. the overall effort by GLENDORA was very good. #10 provided a solid spark early to keep the tartans a float for a bit. some good spot up shooting from #25 and the usual dirty work from the bigs who battled hard for boards and did what they could to get the shooters open with solid screens. ET received solid play from the pg #11, who hit a bulk of the 3s, #4, #15 off the bench. #21 was also very good for ET. didnt score much, but really grinds in the paint and does all those little things that dont show up in the box score…alot can be said about a program, whose bench gets more excited about a drawn charge, than a break away dunk…in the days of ME-FIRST/floating/no help defense, and high-screen/drive and kick offense, both the ET DEFENSE and GLENDORA OFFENSE are a nice breath of fresh air at the hs level. the score may say otherwise, but just for those 2 things, it was worth the price of admission…good luck to both teams the rest of the way.

  • SGV’s Best

    Congrats Etiwanda on your win versus G-town. Just remember this…you may have beaten this SGV team, but there is an SGV team that OWNS you!

  • Hmmmmm…

    if a SGV team has roster of players that are NOT from the SGV, are they still an SGV team? lol.

  • SGV’s Best

    You must be talking about Damien football. If kids who live in Chino Hills, Ontario and Fontana (let alone the LaVerne kids) at a SGV school aren’t an SGV team then you must be correct.