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Orange Lutheran knocked out of regionals
Orange Lutheran's boys basketball team was eliminated in the second round of the state tournament for the second year in a row.
This time, though, the Lancers did not exit the season empty-handed.
Having won a CIF-Southern Section championship made what happened Thursday easier to accept – a 75-58 loss to La Verne Lutheran in a Division 3 second-round game of the CIF Southern California Regionals at Orange Lutheran.
The 2010-11 season still gave Orange Lutheran much to celebrate. Last week, the Lancers won the school's first CIF boys basketball championship, when they beat Windward of Los Angeles in the Southern Section 4AA final. They beat Mater Dei for the first time in school history, in a Trinity League home game in January.
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Sure, Orange Lutheran would like to keep it going. But finishing 27-7, winning a CIF championship and beating Mater Dei was satisfying.
"It's really nice when you go into the state tournament and you've already won a CIF title," Orange Lutheran coach Chris Nordstrom said. "But they were just better than us tonight."
"They" are the La Verne Lutheran Trojans (23-5), who will play at Harvard-Westlake (29-4) in the Regionals Division 3 semifinals Saturday. La Verne Lutheran was eliminated, by Price of Los Angeles, in the Southern Section 3AA semifinals.
The state tournament gives such teams a second chance, and the Trojans seem to be intent on making the most of it.
La Verne Lutheran never trailed Thursday. The Trojans had a 9-0 lead early, a 22-7 lead at the end of the first quarter and a 40-15 lead at halftime.
Orange Lutheran scored 25 points in the third quarter to set up a chance in the fourth. Two free throws by sophomore Payton Banks with 3:33 to go got the Lancers within eight, 62-54, but that was as close as they would come. The Trojans outscored them, 13-4, the rest of the way.
La Verne Lutheran's Grant Jerrett was too much to handle for the Lancers. Jerrett, a 6-foot-9 junior center who committed to Arizona, scored 30 points with 16 rebounds and six blocked shots. He was 13 for 20 from the floor.
"There aren't very many true centers in high school basketball," Nordstrom said. "But he's one of them.
"We haven't played a guy like him maybe since the Wear twins (David and Travis Wear, who graduated from Mater Dei two years ago), but he's better in the low block then they were."
La Verne Lutheran guard CJ Cooper, who signed with UTEP, scored 16.
Junior guard Gabe York led Lutheran with 21 points, 13 in the second half. Senior guard James Douglas, who signed with Northern Arizona, scored 20 points with seven rebounds in his final Orange Lutheran game of four years of varsity basketball.
Sophomore guard Payton Banks scored 13, all in the second half, for the Lancers.
York and Banks will return, but Lutheran will miss Douglas, likely the 2010-11 CIF-SS 4AA player of the year, and another senior, Scott Baron, who was an important rebounding and defense presence inside.
"We had only the two seniors," Nordstrom said. "But those two meant so much to the team, on and off the court."
In Division 2:
Peninsula of Palos Verdes 62, Foothill 49: The visiting Knights (23-9) were eliminated in the second round. Foothill, seeded at No. 14 in the 14-team bracket, had defeated third-seeded Mission Viejo in the first round on Tuesday.
