Basketball Still Evans’ First Love

Before Emmanuel Evans developed into the Northwest Valley Conference offensive player of the year as an All-City running back for Birmingham High in football, the 6-foot-3 senior was a pretty fair basketball player.

As a freshman at Faith Baptist, Evans averaged 14.8 points and 8.6 rebounds for the Contenders before transferring to Birmingham. While his football career flourished--he gained more than 2,200 yards rushing this season, Evans remains a fixture on the court.

Evans averaged 13.4 points and 7.8 rebounds last year as the Braves advanced to the City Section 3-A semifinals. This year, he’s scoring 19.8 points and has 8.9 rebounds as Birmingham returns to the semifinals.

“Basketball is my first love,” Evans said. “I’m not really sure if I’ve ever really loved football.”

The No. 4-seeded Braves (17-9) play ninth-seeded San Pedro (9-18) tonight at 8 p.m. at Cal State Los Angeles. Birmingham is the top seeded team left in the 16-team tournament.

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Evans isn’t the only football player making an impact on the court for Birmingham. Jerome Riley wasn’t happy with his playing time in basketball last season, so much so that he left the team midway through the season.

This year, after catching 40 passes as a starting wide receiver, Roley teams with Fahim Hassankhail to form one of the better defensive backcourts in the City.

Riley averages 3.6 steals a game and Hassankhail 3.0.

“Football helps,” said Riley. “It’s all about speed and quickness.”

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For the second consecutive season, Sylmar is on a roll in the 3-A playoffs.

The seventh-seeded Spartans (17-9), who have won eight consecutive games, play 11th-seeded University (11-14) in a semifinal at 6 p.m. at Cal State Los Angeles.

Last season, Sylmar won 10 straight games before losing to Franklin in the semifinals.

The Warriors have a balanced attack led by junior forward Hassan Trotter and senior forward Jeffrey Kermah.

Chris Ferguson made three three-points shots in the fourth quarter in a 63-61 victory over Hamilton in the quarterfinals Wednesday.

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The North Hollywood girls’ team, seeded third, plays in a 4-A semifinal game tonight against second-seeded Palisades at Southwest College. The matchup brings back bad memories for the Huskies (25-2).

Two years ago, Palisades went into the playoffs as the No. 12-seeded team after a mediocre regular season, and went all the way to the final before falling to Washington.

The Dolphins upset North Hollywood in a quarterfinal game that season.

“From their point of view, that’s got to be one of the greatest runs in their history,” North Hollywood Coach Rich Allen said.

“We had been kind of preparing for Garfield (Palisades’ first-round opponent), and we got them instead. It was a fantastic spectator game. They just started clicking toward the end, and they beat us.”

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Granada Hills freshman forward Kelly Patterson sat out the second half of the Highlanders’ quarterfinal victory over Franklin because of an injured left knee and her status for tonight is uncertain.

Patterson, who averages nearly eight points and 11 rebounds a game, was hurt when she took a knee to the back of her knee. She left the game on Wednesday, returned and attempted to play on it again, but could not.

Other than Patterson, Granada Hills Coach Carolyn Gunny said the fourth-seeded Highlanders (17-4) are as ready as they’ll ever be to face top-seeded Fairfax in a 3-A semifinal at 8 p.m. at Occidental College.

Although the Highlanders went down to the wire before pulling out a 62-61 victory on two free throws by Jessica Cosby with 11 seconds left, Gunny was pleased with her team’s play against Franklin.

“We played better than we did the first round,” she said. “Now, the team has to step it up another level.”

Staff writer Michael Lazarus and correspondent Lauren Peterson contributed to this notebook.