Huskies Dominate Lancers on Sophomore Night, 109-47

by Cerwin D Haynes

(photos by Chris Nunez & Juan Sanchez)

The recent string of blowout victories that East LA College men's basketball have been enjoying is less about the team showing off their talent supremacy within the conference, and more about what they need to do with that talent: win big to hold their place in the state rankings, where they are currently eighth-best in California.

The visiting Lancers from Pasadena City (1-22, 0-6) have struggled a great deal this season, and it would have been easy for the Huskies to overlook their opponent knowing that 30th ranked Mt. San Antonio College is waiting for the Pack in Walnut this coming Friday. But to the credit of this maturing ELAC squad, they did what they needed to do: put away a lesser opponent early.

The Huskies (22-4, 7-0) opened the first 10 minutes of the game on a 25-9 spurt. If you extend that to the first 14+ minutes, they opened by outscoring the Lancers 32-9. And it came from a variety of players and a variety of methods: layups, jumpers, dunks, fast break layups and dunks, offensive rebound-putbacks... and three-pointers - something the Huskies have not been mostly known for this season to date. The lead would grow from 23 to 36 over the final 5:47 of the half as ELAC hit the locker room up 57-21.

The Huskies shot 56.4% from the field in the first half vs PCC's 33.3%. Looking at the final score, if one guessed that ELAC kept up the hot shooting in the second half, they'd be right: the Pack shot 61.1% to Pasadena's 19.4%.

Lastly, the home Green were able to put on a show in front of some very special guests: billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Clippers Steve Ballmer was in attendance along with his team's head coach, Tyronn Lue. They were joined by another billionaire in the E-rena stands: Netflix owner Reed Hastings (note: Netflix is currently shooting ELAC men's basketball for the upcoming second season of Last Chance U: Basketball).

HUSKY BITS

• Starting G Cory Cofield and backup C Bryan Penn-Johnson led all scorers with 21 points each. Cofield shot 7-10 from the field and 7-8 from the free throw line, while the seven-footer Johnson took advantage of his height to shoot (well, mostly dunk) 10-12 FGs.
• Rserve G Richard Wilson nailed five out of six from downtown (5-8 overall) for 15 points.
• Forward JT Langston came off the bench to grab 12 boards.
• Jordan Flowers lead the Lancers with 16 points.

UP NEXT:

The Huskies head out to Walnut for a rematch with second-place Mt. SAC this Friday at 5pm. Although ELAC already has won a share of the SCC-North title, a win Friday will lock up the conference outright.