Grant Gordon
It was a near-perfect script.
Before Friday night's Prep League boys' basketball game,
Flintridge Prep senior Kevan Brown informed Coach Garrett Ohara that
he might not be up to playing. He had flu-like symptoms, he was pale
and had a mild fever.
"I was debating whether or not I should play," Brown said.
Brown did play. And, in front of an overflowing and raucous home
crowd that included Brown's parents, his sister and all his friends
that had gathered for senior night, he scored a game-high 21 points
as the Rebels blew out Rio Hondo Prep, 62-34.
"This was a great night for me," said Brown, who scored 18 of his
points in the first half and hit five of his team's eight
three-pointers on the game.
Said Ohara: "He was on. It's nice to do that on senior night."
The lopsided win also enabled Brown to get some rest early as he
played just over two quarters.
After that, nine different Rebels scored for Flintridge Prep
(12-6, 3-1 in league). Andrew Beck, Darin Nakauchi, Mike Simon,
Daniel Hurley and Brady Thomson all scored six points as everybody
got a chance to play and, seemingly, everybody was hitting their
shots. For all intents and purposes, the game was decided after the
first 16 minutes.
After holding the Kares (11-5, 1-3) to just five points in the
first quarter, the Rebels blew the game wide open in the second.
"We played as well as we could have in the first half," Ohara
said, "on both sides of the ball."
Flintridge Prep outscored Rio Hondo Prep, 24-10, in the stanza,
highlighted by a 10-0 run. Brown scored 10 points in the quarter and
finished the half with a three just before the buzzer -- just as he'd
done in the first quarter.
* GRANT GORDON covers sports. He can be reached at (818) 637-3228
or by e-mail at grant.gordon@latimes.com.
