Richard Stein Remembers

Richard Stein:

 Seeing how I type two words a minute this is a major undertaking. There were so many great memories of that season. I remember we were all a little disappointed how badly we played in the finals at the sports arena. As we were watching the 4-A game between Verbum Dei and Crescenta it felt like we were the JV team. But the memories of the championship are very sweet today as I look back. I think the greatest memory I have is the wonderful friendship we had with one another. Barclay and I are still best friends to this day and I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow night. I’ll list some of my highlights of the season.

  • After getting blown out by Crescenta Valley in an early season tournament their players came up and told us we were a really good team and we had a great chance to win a championship. That was a great confidence builder and the next game we went out and beat a good Santa Barbara team with Don Ford by one point.
  • Blowing out Santa Barbara by twenty points at their gym. I think that was the point where we believed we were a good team.
  • BeatingĀ  Santa Maria at our gym by twenty. They were our biggest rivals and they had beaten us in a summer league tourney but Bruce C. was a dominant player by this time.
  • The games with San Marcos and the rivalry with Steve. I remember Tom Henderson shutting him down
  • Getting beat by Santa Maria at their gym was a great wake up call for us.
  • The CIF playoffs-what a trip.
  • The packed house at Westmont. We had such great fan support. We knew if we won that game we would be on TV.
  • The Katella game on TV. I remember I was so nervous I didn’t know who I was guarding for the first 5 minutes. They jumped out to a ten to nothing lead and I remember thinking this was the end of the line. How embarrassing to get blown out on TV. But Scott had that great game and we came back to win.
  • The finals. The Sports Arena. So big, I felt lost out there. What a great game Bruce had and what a great player he had become.
  • Looking back at the struggles we had with coach Volpi with the players wanting to play a more wide open game. We never would have won that way. He was a much better coach then we gave him credit for at the time.

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