Boys Roundup : St. Bernard Defense Can’t Contain Tom Lewis

Orange County high school basketball’s hottest one-man act for the past two seasons--The Tom Lewis Show--made its 1985 debut Wednesday night at Crawford Hall.

The year may be new, but result was much the same as before.

Lewis scored 35 of Mater Dei High School’s 56 points in leading the Monarchs to a 56-52 nonleague victory over St. Bernard. As usual, his performance, which including six free throws in the final 3:15 to give the Monarchs both the lead and eventually the win, drew rave reviews.

“He scored 35 points against a defense designed to deny him the ball,” St. Bernard Coach Jim McClune said. “Some people second-guess (Mater Dei head coach Gary) McKnight for doing that (feeding the ball to Lewis), but you can see the results.”

Actually, in spite of Lewis’ totals, the Viking defense against him--collapsing as many as three or four men around him whenever he got near the basket--wasn’t all that bad.

It’s just that Lewis can beat a team in so many different ways that he becomes literally impossible to stop: driving to the basket, driving and pulling up for the short jump shot, beating his defender to the baseline, hitting his free throws, or passing the ball off to an open teammate when it gets too crowded, are all among the many moves in the Lewis repertoire.

So it was Wednesday night. Both teams were coming off layoffs since Christmas and were largely unable to make their respective running games go. Defense, then, became the order of the evening.

That was especially true in the second half, after the teams came out from halftime tied at 34 apiece, and it was apparent that the visitors from Playa del Rey not only were in the game, but had as good a chance as any team this season to upset Mater Dei (14-0).

The Monarchs outscored the Vikings in the third quarter 8-6, with those low totals coming more from bad passing and good defense than from stalling on anybody’s behalf. Down 42-40 going into the last quarter, St. Bernard couldn’t overtake Mater Dei largely because its offense failed.

In the first half, St. Bernard had good success working the ball inside to sophomore forward David Whitmore, who wasn’t intimidated going inside against Mater Dei’s physical defenders. In the second half, Mater Dei put in defensive specialist Mike Mitchell and then, after Mitchell drew his fourth foul, Lewis, on Whitmore.

The combination worked as Whitmore scored only 4 of his team-high 17 points in the second half. In fact, after reserve forward Kirkland Howling scored on a nice “back door” layup to give the Vikings the lead at 52-50 with 3:25 to play, the Vikings failed to score again.

In the meantime, St. Bernard kept fouling Lewis while on defense, but it wasn’t necessarily intentional as the ball usually ends up in Lewis’ hands at the end of a close game.

Lewis, an excellent free throw shooter, dropped in two of his last six points from the free throw line with 1:23 to play, putting the Monarchs ahead for good, 54-52.

The Vikings blew their last chance to tie it when guard Reggie Howard turned the ball over with 33 seconds to play. Two more free throws by Lewis finished the scoring for the game.

Mater Dei meets Long Beach Poly Friday night at the Long Beach Arena, in a rematch of last season’s Southern Section 4-A division championship game. Poly, the last team to beat Mater Dei, won that one, 45-44, in overtime.

In other nonleague action:

Huntington Beach 64, Santa Ana Valley 57--Junior center Darren Snow tallied 13 points and 11 rebounds to pace the Oilers (4-4) against the Falcons (1-6) at Huntington Beach. Santa Ana Valley evened the game at 38-38 with 3:50 remaining in the third quarter, but the Oilers surged to a 40-34 advantage by the close of the quarter. Oiler guard Anthony Howard made four free throws in the final 40 seconds to clinch the win.

San Clemente 44, Los Amigos 28--The Lobos opened the game at San Clemente with an offensive stalling technique, but the Tritons gradually overcame it, due in part to four steals by guard Cary Reese and three more by Gary Wade. The Tritons dominated the boards as Wade grabbed 13 rebounds to go with his 12 points, and Tony Villanueva had 12 rebounds along with 15 points.

Buena Park 65, Western 61--The Coyotes (5-4) won their third-straight game behind guard Reggie Brown’s 16-point fourth quarter. The Coyotes received additional fine performances from sixth-man Peter Ybarra, who scored 12 points, and Omar Rodriguez, who had seven steals. Western’s offensive leaders were Troy Joseph and Bill Barris with 17 points each.