Wes Nakama
December 17, 2011, 7:55pm
De La Salle staves off scrappy Farrington, 58-46
De La Salle guard Elliot Pitts dishes the ball midair as Farrington's Mikey Kleman defends. Brien Ing | SLThe Spartans, ranked No. 30 in the ESPN Rise/Powerade Fab 50, will face Orlando (Calif.) in tomorrow's 8 p.m. quarterfinal. Farrington, the defending Division II state champion, will play Kamehameha at 1:30 p.m. in tomorrow's consolation bracket.
"This was a good game for us, a learning experience," Governors coach Allan Silva said. "If we can put it together against one of the best teams in the country like that, we can compete with anybody."
De La Salle jumped out to a 10-0 lead in the first three minutes, but Farrington closed it to 15-12 by the end of the first period and Chadey Callazo swished a baseline jumper one minute into the second quarter to close it to 15-14.
The Spartans opened the lead to 29-23 by halftime and nudged it to 38-30 entering the fourth quarter before starting the final period with an 8-2 run to make it 46-32 with 3:13 remaining. The Govs could not get closer than 11 points the rest of the way, despite center Viane Vaina scoring 13 of his team-high 15 points in the final six minutes.
"They did a good job, that big kid (Vaina) is quite a load," De La Salle coach Frank Allocco said. "We played a good post guy last week from Damien (La Verne, Calif.), he signed with St. Mary's (Calif.) and we held him to eight points. But we couldn't stop (Vaina). I was impressed with their patience, because we hit 10 free throws in a row in the fourth quarter but they kept coming back at us."
Remington White added 12 points for the Spartans.