No. 4 Brentwood Upset by L. A. Baptist, 55-40

It appeared going in that Maury Neville was playing a no-lose hand.

If his L. A. Baptist Knights won Friday night’s Southern Section 1-A Division quarterfinal game against Brentwood, his team would advance to Tuesday’s semifinal round.

If his team lost, Neville could claim that Brentwood player Chris Scott was not on the official roster submitted to the Southern Section office before the start of the playoffs.

As it turned out, the coach didn’t have to use his ace. L. A. Baptist broke open a close game at the start of the second half and walked away with a 55-40 win at home.

Good thing, too, because it turned out there was nothing up Neville’s sleeve.

“There are no protests in playoff games. It was just a little bit of gamesmanship,” Neville said.

Brentwood Coach Bob Ingram said that his roster was turned in to the Southern Section office while Scott was still on the junior varsity, and he wasn’t sure if Scott’s name had been added to the list.

In the second half, the Knights’ defense held Brentwood, seeded No. 4 going into the game, to just seven field goals and kept the Eagles scoreless for more than four minutes at the start of the fourth quarter.

“We just packed it in to stop them from going inside,” said L. A. Baptist guard Mike Wise, who finished with a game-high 24 points.

In addition to Wise, senior forward James Hoback scored 18 points and junior guard Brett Craig had 9. For Brentwood (19-5), Michael Victor--the team’s leading scorer--was held to nine points, and center Mark Nilstein had a team-high 10.

L. A. Baptist (19-4) advances to the semifinals for the second time in three years and will play Bell-Jeff, a 59-51 winner over St. Bonaventure on Friday night.

After trailing by as many as six points in the first half, L. A. Baptist trailed at halftime, 24-23. The Knights took the lead for good, 25-24, seconds into the third quarter on a jump shot by Cliff Robinson.

L. A. Baptist held Brentwood to seven points in the third quarter, while scoring 15. In the quarter, Hoback led the Knights with nine points. He scored 8 of their last 10 points on four baskets, including a turnaround jump shot with two seconds left to give L. A. Baptist a 38-31 lead.

“Hoback and Wise played great games but so did everyone else,” Neville said.

Brentwood did not score in the fourth quarter until Brent Bartman made a basket with 3:31 left.