TORRANCE TRIBUNE January 14, 2016 Page 5 Up and Adam Torrance Continues Hot Play, Topples West NFL Divisional Round Set By Adam Serrao Is there anything at all in this world better than playoff football? After last week’s wild card matchups - that were certainly wild in every aspect of the word - the answer is a clear and overwhelming, ‘No!’ If there is anything bad at all that the playoffs signify, it’s that the football season that seemingly flashes by in the blink of an eye is almost over. With that being said, there are still a handful of teams attempting to duke it out in order to fulfill their dreams and scream, “Certain teams excelled, others buckled under pressure and others simply just didn’t show up. Seeing who rises to the occasion is what sports are all about. Which team will rise the highest?” “I’m going to Disneyland” into the camera come postgame, February 7th. Last week was a clear example of the lengths different teams will go to in order to reach prominence. Certain teams excelled, others buckled under pressure and others simply just didn’t show up. Seeing who rises to the occasion is what sports are all about. Which team will rise the highest? The team that certainly sank the lowest was the Houston Texans in their matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs. An absolutely horrible performance was low-lighted by Brian Hoyer who highlighted the question of how the Texans made it to the playoffs in the first place. A total of 136 yards passing and four interceptions on the day were just some of the things that Hoyer did wrong as his team - which finished first place in the AFC South with a 9-7 record - managed zero points on the day in a 30-0 blowout. On the other side of the ball, the Chiefs defense looked like the best in the league. With Justin Houston, Husain Abdullah, and Allen Bailey leading the way, the Texans looked completely and utterly outmatched. Alex Smith managed the game nicely, throwing for 190 yards and a touchdown, while star receiver Jeremy Maclin left with what was a high ankle sprain. His potential absence from this week’s game will make it that much harder to get past what should be a rejuvenated New England Patriots team next round. By Adam Serrao You know the boys High School basketball season is getting good when you see matchups like Torrance High versus West High on the schedule. If the two teams aren’t by chance meeting in a tournament, you know they’re meeting because league play has at last begun. When league play starts, that means only one thing - rivalries. The Tartars and the Warriors have nothing short of a rivalry, sharing the same city and competing in the same league. Whenever the two teams meet, like they did last Friday night in the Pioneer League opener at West High, records go out the window. Unfortunately for the Warriors, so too did their chance of winning the game. The Tartars put on a clinic in the third quarter and behind Justin Hino’s eight points in the period, caught fire and eventually ran away with a 52-42 victory to open up league play with a bang. The first half of the game between the two rivals belonged to West High, in large part thanks to Noah Carroll. Carroll has been steady for the Warriors all season long and in this one, scored eight of his 15 total points in the first quarter to pace West. The Warriors wound up taking a 26-17 lead into halftime and were feeling quite good about things. When Carroll came out to start the third quarter by sinking a three-pointer to give West their biggest lead of the night at 29-17, head coach Neal Perlmutter and his home crowd started believing it might just be their night. That’s when the Tartars stepped up their play. A 12-0 run by the Tartars that took the third quarter clock to below 3:00 got the team right back in the game. “Our sense of urgency and the intensity on the defensive end really ramped up,” Torrance head coach Paul Nitake explained. “It led to some fast breaks and some good easy buckets.” Not only did the Tartars finally begin to put some points up on the board, but they also clamped down on defense. Aside from Carroll’s three points to start the third quarter, the Warriors managed only four more in the period as they were eventually outscored 17-7. Before the fourth quarter began, the Tartars found themselves leading for the first time at 34-33. Giovonni Jackson took over from there and led his team to victory. “I knew I had to get going and I had to get in my groove,” Jackson said. He certainly got his groove back and proved it with a two handed jam that blew the Warriors right out of the gym and gave his team every last ounce of momentum. “I took all my anger out on the dunk and started scoring more after,” Jackson continued. With 12 of his game-high 16 points scored in the fourth quarter, the Tartars came raging back from an early deficit and ultimately came away with a 10 point, 52-42 victory. “We didn’t execute well in the second half,” Perlmutter said of his team. It wasn’t so much West not executing as much as it was Torrance finally performing in the second half. The Tartars outscored the Warriors 35- 16 in the final two quarters of play. Torrance (11-7, 1-0), already leading the way in the Pioneer League standings, will go on to face off against a struggling South High team this week. West (6-11, 0-1), on the other hand, will be looking for their first league victory as they welcome Leuzinger (8-6) to their home gym. North High vs. South High On the other side of the city, there was yet another rivalry game going on as the North High Saxons took to the busses and traveled South to take on the Spartans in another Pioneer League opener. A 10 point win wouldn’t seem like a small margin of victory at first glance, but while the Saxons (9-8, 1-0) are enjoying one of the more successful years out of the majority of the teams in the Pioneer League, the Spartans are detesting their rather horrid 2-13 start. All that being said, 10 points kept it a rather See Up and Adam, page 7 See Round Set, page 7
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