SOUTHERN SECTION BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS : 3-A Division : Pomona Is Able to Slow Down El Dorado Enough to Advance With Win

For most of the season, El Dorado High School’s basketball team has been Placentia’s leading form of rapid transit. But traffic slowed to a crawl in the fast lane Tuesday and the Golden Hawks’ fine season finally ground to a halt.

Pomona restricted them to a half-court game at the crucial juncture and the Red Devils took a 70-66 victory in the second round of the CIF Southern Section 3-A playoffs at Katella High School.

Pomona (17-6) did not earn the victory with a lot of big-man razzle-dazzle, the way it beat Bolsa Grande in Friday’s opening round when the Red Devils dunked 10 times and 6-foot 10-inch center Marcy Lee had 28 points, 13 rebounds and 7 blocked shots.

Although the El Dorado game lacked those dramatics--and Lee scored just six points--Pomona Coach Willie Allen liked Tuesday’s game even better because of his team’s smoothness and consistency.

When 6-6 Derwin Collins, the early game’s leading scorer with 16 points, picked up his fourth foul with 2:14 left in the second quarter, the roof did not collapse on Pomona. Instead, the rest of the team gathered itself and finished the job.

The Red Devils had never beaten an Orange County team in a playoff game in Orange County during the seven years Allen has been the coach, although they have had three other tries.

“For their size, pound-for-pound, El Dorado is one of the best teams we’ve played,” Allen said. “They’re an extremely good ballclub.”

The promising aspect of the early game for El Dorado was that it rebounded well against the much larger Red Devils. The Hawks even managed to get off nine more shots overall. The bad part was, the Hawks missed a total of 40 shots contrasted with the Red Devils’ 28 misses. El Dorado, which has not advanced to the playoff quarterfinals since 1977, made 28 of 68 (41%); Pomona made 31 of 59 (53%).

“We were not getting a lot of layups,” El Dorado Coach Terry Conley said.

The Golden Hawks (20-6) never really got into their flow, which is about 80 miles an hour on a good night. But that sort of pace requires turnovers by their opponent, along with missed shots and other forced errors.

None of that happened often enough for the Golden Hawks. The Red Devils committed 12 turnovers, but the Hawks committed 10 themselves. El Dorado spent quite a bit of time pining away in a half-court offense and missing outside shots, particularly down the stretch when the Red Devils took their largest lead of the game, 69-62 with 1:10 to go.

Pomona’s Tyrone Greer finished with 9 rebounds and 23 points, including 17 during Collins’ absence in the second half. Red Devil guard Allan Caveness had six steals and nine assists. El Dorado’s Jim Sammon scored 22 and Dan Bailey, who helped keep the Hawks close at the end, scored 17.