Wilson’s Kyle Price (3) drives to the basket past San Dimas’ Omar Nasri (50) in the first half of a prep basketball game at Wilson High School in Hacienda Heights, Calif., on Friday, Jan. 31, 2014. (Keith Birmingham Pasadena Star-News)
By Stephen Ramirez
@SteveRRamirez on Twitter
HACIENDA HEIGHTS >> Wilson High School began the season as the favorite to win the Valle Vista League boys basketball title, and the Wildcats will likely live up to that preseason billing.
Kyle Price scored a game-high 19 points and Kevin Price had 16 and 12 rebounds and host Wilson solidified its hold on first place with an 82-47 victory over second-place San Dimas on Friday.
The Wildcats, also getting nine points from Eric Lee and eight each from Justin Lee and Justin Chan, improved to 15-7 overall and 8-0 in league. San Dimas, getting 12 points each from Ryan Ocampo and Omar Nasri, slipped to 10-10 and 6-2.
Wilson, keyed by the inside play of Kevin Price and some cluth 3-point shooting from Li, put this one away after using runs of 11-1 and 14-6 in the third quarter to go up 53-33. The Wilcats then outscored San Dimas, 28-11 to win by 35.
Wilson coach Willie Allen: “It was huge and the boys knew it. They knew how big this was. They didn’t want to share any league title. They wanted to make sure we won this outright.
“We had a good game at San Dimas (earlier this season) that was close, and we wanted to send a message to the rest of the league.”
San Dimas coach Bruce Robbins: “We didn’t respond very well being down. Since we made the switch (to an up-tempo attack), we hadn’t been behind. Our kids just didn’t respond, or we didn’t respond to when we missed shots. When we missed shots, our heads went into the toilet somewhere. I guess I could have done something to slow the game down, but I really didn’t want to do that because we’re trying to get a certain way to playing in our kids’ minds that we think in the long run is better for us. I kept us playing the way we want to play, and Wilson did a nice job.”
Kevin Price: “We just (keep) our composure. (Basketball) is a game of runs. They had theirs and we had to stop it and get ours.”
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