Harvard-Westlake takes Open title
Even when the shots weren't falling for the Harvard-Westlake boys basketball team, nor its free throws down the stretch, the defensive effort was never in question. It hasn't been all season. For the third game in a row in the CIF Southern Section Open Division playoffs, the Wolverines held their opponent to a season low in points.
With the defense holding down the fort, HarvardWestlake defeated Roosevelt 54-47 Friday night at Cal Baptist University to claim its first CIF-SS Open Division title.
“Toughness, character, they know what our backbone is and our backbone as a program is the defensive end and defensive discipline and just overall discipline,” Harvard-Westlake head coach David Rebibo said. “They believe, they buy into it and the proof is in the pudding.”
The Wolverines uncharacteristically struggled with their shooting in all areas — from the field, 3-point line and free-throw line. They made 36%, 23% and 68%, respectively.
But led by Nikolas Khamenia's 15 points and Robert Hinton's 15 points, Harvard-Westlake scored just enough while holding the Mustangs to 30% shooting from the field to pull out the victory.
“Today was not one of our best shooting nights, just not one of our nights,” Khamenia said. “But the defensive end took care of it. We rebounded well, we took
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care of the ball well enough. They only scored 47.”
The Wolverines maintained the lead for the entirety of the game, but the Mustangs made a comeback late in the fourth quarter after Darnez Slater hit a couple of corner 3-pointers.
Roosevelt brought it to within three points, but after Trent Perry missed a pair of free throws, Hinton was fouled on a rebound attempt and he made both free throws to help Harvard-Westlake pull away.
Slater led Roosevelt with 18 points. Brayden Burries scored 14 points.
“I'm feeling so many emotions right now,” Hinton said. “There's nothing like this. I'm so proud of our team, our coaches and I'm so happy we pulled through.”
Harvard-Westlake has a hefty collection of trophies in its case, including six straight Mission League titles and a CIF State Open title, but this is the first CIFSS Open Division championship for the Wolverines.
It was a goal from the start of the season to capture the CIF-SS crown, and now there is one objective left on this season's list — the state title.
“This has been something we've been chasing for a long time,” Khamenia said. “My freshman year we lost this game at Centennial. Last year we didn't make it to this game. So this year it was an emphasis. We had some unfinished business.
“We got this one, but we still got one more to go.”
“That's two down. Last one,” Hinton said with a beaming smile.