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Updated March 15th, 2007
LCHS Boy's Basketball
Malik Leads Spartans to
State Semifinals, Pauley Pavilion
La Cañada High School basketball players Tucker Heaton (5), Will Baldwin (21), Adam Malik (11),
Darren Ho (31), Mike Mikuni and Christian Nitu flex their muscles after the Spartans defeated
Mission Bay, 65-58, in the quarterfinals of the state tournament last Saturday. LCHS plays Lakewood
Artesia at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion this Saturday at noon, with the winner advancing to the state
championship game.
By SCOTT RIDDELL
LCF Outlook
Behind another stellar team
defensive effort and a superstar performance
from senior forward
Adam Malik, the La Cañada High
School boys’ basketball team
defeated No. 3-seeded Mission Bay
of San Diego, 65-58, last Saturday
night in the quarterfinals of the CIF
State Division III playoffs.
With the win in front of a capacity
crowd at LCHS, the secondseeded
Spartans (30-3 record)
advanced to the State Southern
Regional final for the first time in
the school’s 44-year history. LCHS
will face top-ranked Lakewood
Artesia this Saturday at noon at
UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. (The winner
of that game will play the
Northern Regional champion in the
state Division III title game in
Sacramento on March 24.)
The Spartans got off to a rough
start against Mission Bay, allowing
the visiting Buccaneers to jump in
front by as many as nine points in
the first quarter.
LC came storming back and tied
the game at 23 on a three-pointer by
Jackson Ridd early in the second,
but with four minutes to play in the half, the visitors still held a threepoint
advantage.
After a blocking call on senior
guard Darren Ho with 4:04 remaining,
Coach Tom Hofman was ejected
for arguing with the officials,
and the Spartans were forced to
regroup without their head coach.
“I knew the kids would play
fine without me,” said Hofman,
who was ejected from a game for
the first time in his 21-year varsity
career at LCHS, according to
Assistant Coach Jim Harvey. “And
our coaches are good coaches. Jeff
(Stephens) did a great job. I had
confidence in the coaches and I
knew the players would give their
best effort.”
Mission Bay closed out the half
with a 10-2 run, taking advantage of
the rattled, head coach-less
Spartans, and heading into halftime
with a 40-29 lead.
In Hofman’s absence, Stephens
took over on the bench, and the
players took over in the locker
room at halftime.
“Coach Stephens had about a
one-minute talk, and then we just
huddled up as a team,” said Malik,
who finished with a career-high 43
points. “We knew that Coach
[Hofman] had already taught us
everything we needed to know, so
we just needed to go out and do it.”
“Once Tom got thrown out, I
thought the key was to get the kids
to settle down,” Stephens said, “and
not to be so emotional every time a
call went against them. I said,
‘Guys, quit whining and let’s go out
there and play.’ I told them this
could be another awesome chapter
in their season; they could lose their
cornerstone in their coach and go
out and win.”
Malik came out firing on all
cylinders in the second half, and his
teammates followed suit.
LC began the third period with
an 8-0 run, including two threepointers
by Christian Nitu, cutting
the Buccaneer lead to just three
points.
“In the second half, they spread
out our defense and made threepointers,”
Mission Bay Coach
Dennis Kane said. “We got away
from what we did successfully in
the first half.”
When Malik knocked down a
three-pointer with 51 seconds
remaining in the third, the Spartans
had their first lead since the game’s
early going, 47-45.
La Cañada continued its stellar
play in the fourth quarter, getting a
huge three-pointer from Ho, who
finished with 10, and big bucket
after big bucket from Malik.
“We showed our best character
in the second half,” Hofman said.
“But [my players] have shown character
the whole year. They have
weathered storms and come back.”
Mission Bay’s star, James
Hancock, scored seven straight
points in the fourth quarter, giving
his squad a short-lived 54-53 lead
midway through the period, but Malik would not be denied.
“The crowd was a huge part of
it in the second half,” Malik
acknowledged. “We knew every
shot was going in, and we knew we
weren’t going to lose in our gym.”
He scored his team’s final 13
points, including two layups and a
free throw in the final two minutes
to secure the seven-point win for
the Spartans. Malik connected on
four three-pointers and scored 25
points in the second half alone.
“Awesome,” Coach Kane said
when asked to describe Malik’s performance.
“The kid is absolutely
awesome.”
Nitu was LC’s second-highest
scorer with 10 points.
Hancock finished with 22 to
lead Mission Bay, which had captured
the CIF-San Diego Section
Division III title two weeks ago.
“Things turned out okay under
very unfortunate — if not extremely
bizarre — circumstances for
Coach Hofman,” Stephens said.
“[Assistant coaches] Jim Harvey,
Ray O’Brien and I just filled in. The
team made us look very good. It
was an unbelievable performance in
the second half. They refused to
lose.
“I don’t want or deserve the
spotlight,” Stephens added. “This
story should be about 19 kids and
one coach that have worked their
tails off. For one hour, their coach
wasn’t there and they stepped up.
They believed, they fought and they perservered.”
LC 68, Hanford West 56 — Malik’s 36-point, 10-rebound effort
paced the Spartans to their first
state playoff win in 15 years over
the visitors from the San Joaquin
Valley last Thursday evening at
LCHS.
Malik scored 27 points in the
first half, including eight during a
10-0 second-quarter run, helping
LC jump out to a 39-21 halftime
lead.
The Spartans pushed the advantage
to 64-38 with a little over five
minutes to play in the game, and Hofman was able to rest his starters
the rest of the way.
Ho added 15 for LC, which
notched the first state playoff win in
school history. In 1992, the
Spartans lost their first-round
match-up with Costa Mesa Estancia
after winning the CIF Division IIIA
title.
Nitu tallied a team-high seven
assists to go with his seven points.
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