Crescenta Valley (6-3) led throughout the entire game, mostly because it took advantage of poor shooting and ball-handling efforts by Glendale (4-5).
Glendale had little chance at stopping Sierra, who scored most of his points on layups.
“Clay Sierra was the story,” said Glendale Coach Steve Snodgress, who got 11 points each from guard David Mansuryan and forward Derenik Kaloosi. “He chewed us up left and right, up and down.
“It was just about us not getting done what we needed to get done.”
The Falcons, who regained the services of Strangis on Tuesday, got more than enough done. In limited action, Strangis had two points and four assists.
Sierra proved to be the headline act for the Falcons.
“Clay had a great game,” said Crescenta Valley Coach Shawn Zargarian, who received 10 points and a game-high seven assists from guard Narbeh Ebrahamian. “It will be huge for us once Eric is healthy because it will take some of the pressure off Clay and the role players can go back to being role players.
“We wanted to come out and work hard on defense by contesting their shots. We knew Glendale could shoot the ball, so we didn’t want them to get open shots.”
The Falcons raced to a 10-0 lead before Mansuryan made a three-pointer to cut Crescenta Valley’s lead to 10-3 with 5:04 left in the first quarter.
The Nitros showed some improvement, outscoring the Falcons, 19-18, in the third quarter. However, they still had no answer for Sierra, who collected 16 points in the final 16 minutes.
“The two biggest things lacking were focus and intensity,” Snodgress said. “We had a pretty low benchmark because we had breakdowns in every category.”
