LJ BB: PLNU camp

By Ed Piper

"Cisco Kid was a friend of mine." War

Francisco "Cisco" Ramos is the Little Train That Can. He is playing for La Jolla High's varsity basketball squad this summer in various camps and tournaments.

He's tiny, and he couldn't get a shot to drop Sat., June 25. But you know what? He is a good ball handler, as one of the other players' mothers said during a game, and he plays hard.

That's what high school sports is all about.

Not all the other stuff: A player losing his temper near the end of a loss to Walnut and getting a technical. I can live with it. You could argue that it's part of the game--not desired, but it happens and it doesn't totally damage the sport or any program.

But behavior by people in the stands. That isn't what high school sports is supposed to be about.

Anyway, hats off to the Cisco Kid. And here's to hoping that La Jolla loses with a little more grace next time. Granted, the referees may be lousy. But that's not an excuse for negative behavior. Get frustrated, but work harder at your own game.

Someone should have been subbed for before getting a technical near the end of the game.

But this all is a minor footnote to a beautiful weekend, Friday and Saturday, of basketball in the Point Loma Nazarene University "camp". At least, that's what they used to call these things. I didn't look closely enough at the pairings to see if this event is called a camp or a tournament.

In any case, players played hard, and the Vikings won their first three in a four-game set. The team had to experience what it is to play without their top player by far, Reed Farley. Let's just say it for what it is. Reed handles his ability admirably, and so do his teammates. They love the guy. They love when he dunks the ball.

They're a different team without him. They won game two Friday and the first game Saturday. As noted in my previous entry, Nick Hammel, Quinn Rawdin, and the other guards--including Cisco--share ball-handling duties in Farley's absence. They all did a good job. Behzad Hashemi is quite capable. Jacob Ohara is coming along.

But finally an opponent applied enough pressure to force La Jolla into a lot of turnovers. Walnut, bringing 16 players down to San Diego overnight from the Mt. San Antonio College area, wasn't to be denied. Their coach has his players emotionally at a high pitch the way former football coach Jason Carter did at La Jolla.

And they pulled away, fair and square. Take that, La Jolla. You're going to have to show a little more class next time you lose.