HIGH SCHOOL ROUNDUP : El Camino Tops Rancho Bernardo

El Camino Coach Ray Johnson cringed as he watched his starting point guard Chris Dade lose the ball after trying to dribble through three players. He shook his head when starting forward Bryant Westbrook dribbled the ball out of bounds on a fast-break opportunity.

But Johnson broke a smile when he saw Clarence Martin, his 6-foot-4, 265-pound freshman, make a fourth-quarter layup that stopped a Rancho Bernardo run and sent El Camino on its way to a 59-51 victory Wednesday night in the Avocado League.

Although the victory improved sixth-ranked El Camino to 13-5 overall and 6-1 in league, Johnson knows this year’s group bears no resemblance to last year’s team that lost to San Pasqual in the Section finals.

“You have to be more patient, because they do some crazy things,” Johnson said. “There are a lot of guys playing their first year. They are starting to do some good things that I didn’t see earlier in the year.”

El Camino has only two players, center Russell White and Westbrook, who played on last year’s team.

White has struggled much of the year and has gone in and out of the starting lineup.

Westbrook, a Times All-County football player who played on the Wildcats’ Section championship team, is only now getting into basketball shape after missing a month of the season.

“I was in the football mode for a while,” Westbrook said. “I had my football teammates yelling, ‘CIF, CIF,’ while I was trying to play basketball. It’s taken me some time to adjust.”

But Westbrook realizes he will never completely adjust to basketball.

“I am a football player playing basketball,” he said.

However, Westbrook is beginning to find his basketball legs. He scored a team-high 19 points, including eight in the third quarter.

El Camino led 21-9 after the first quarter, 30-22 at halftime and 48-43 after the third quarter. But El Camino’s inexperience allowed Rancho Bernardo back into the game in the fourth quarter. The Wildcats turned the ball over three consecutive trips, and Rancho Bernardo closed to within 48-47 on two Mike Ruff baskets with 6:41 remaining.

But Martin’s lay-in and Dade’s breakaway layup gave El Camino a 52-47 lead with 3:13 remaining.

The Wildcats tried to give it away again as they missed three layups, but Rancho Bernardo’s David Santos missed four consecutive free throws that could have cut the lead to 52-51. Rancho Bernardo finished 12 of 25 from the line.

Kirk Hipple led the Broncos (12-6, 5-2) with 20 points and 12 rebounds, but he spent much of the fourth quarter on the bench with foul trouble and had only two free throws in the quarter.