Sports

Roadrunners' Season Comes to End in Playoffs

A Loma LInda Academy team that came into the season rebuilding after losing four starters, finishes with a 65-57 loss.

By Daniel Giang

Special to Loma Linda Patch

The Roadrunners traveled Wednesday to Panorama City to take on St. Genevieve in first round of the CIF-SS Division 5AA playoffs. The Roadrunners played very well, but came up on the losing end of the score 65-57.

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Dante Thomson came out firing for LLA scoring five points and then Santhush Weerasinghe finished the quarter with four points as the lead see-sawed back and forth.

Most of LLA's points came off a half-court offense while the host Valients scored on a series of outlet passes and give and go plays. The score was knotted at 16 at the end of the first period. The Roadrunners looked great shifting from a man defense to a zone defense depending on the possession.

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LLA continued to hang tough through most of the second period, keeping the score tied at 22 with 2 minutes remaining when St. Genevieve's reserves scored a three-pointer and then a field goal for a 27-22 halftime lead.

Coming out of halftime, the Roadrunners made a concerted run as Thomson scored six points. Midway through the period, LLA closed to within 32-30. However, St. Genevieve's Winston Rose went on a personal 6-0 run to extend the lead to 52-41 by the end of the quarter.

LLA chipped away at the lead during the final period as Tim Giang scored five and grabbed three rebounds and Chris Lawrence had four points and three rebounds. However, St. Genevieve managed to maintain a comfortable margin to secure the win.

Giang, a senior, finished his high school career with 11 points, six rebounds and two assists once again playing all 32 minutes. In the first 2 1/2 quarters, Giang held St. Genevieve's scoring leader, Mark Chin, to two points. Giang was then switched to guard Rose and held him to two points the rest of the way. (Rose finished with 17 points and Chin had 11 in the game.)

Thomson led LLA with 13 points and two steals. Weerasinghe, another senior, had an excellent game off the bench with nine points and three boards. Thomson had nine points and nine boards. Sophomore Kieth Stewart, in his first start of the season, scored six, grabbed five rebounds, snatched three steals and blocked two shots.

LLA finished the season with a record of 15-10. Considering that LLA graduated eight players, including 4 starters from the last year's championship team, this outcome is a tribute to the players and coaches who managed to squeeze every ounce of talent for a winning record. This was from the start a rebuilding year.

For example, of the seven players who scored Wednesday night, two are juniors and three are sophomores. Next year, the Roadrunners will have Thomson (the leading scorer) and Lawrence (the leading rebounder) returning for their senior seasons. Justin Im has had more game experience of any sophomore over the past seven years. Stewart and Dakota Jordan will also have had significant game experience and will improve.

Thus, four starting positions and the sixth man on next year's team will improve over this year's team that won 15 games. Furthermore, the JV team had a successful campaign and will provide additional talent.

The Class of 2013 (Im, Stewart, Dakota Jordan, Cameron Peterson, plus JV team players like Michael Lawrence and Joe Rees) is shaping up to contend for the league title as seniors if the team chemistry works.

The Roadrunners have the right to be proud of their accomplishments this season and can look forward to even more successful ones over the next two years.


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