Seahawks jam into TOC final

HUNTINGTON BEACH — The biggest dunk may have been the two-hander that senior forward Anthony Brown threw down on a Long Beach Jordan player in the first quarter Friday night. It had the crowd at the Ocean View Tournament of Champions semifinal game abuzz.

That was the first dunk but far from the last, as the Seahawks pulled away in the second half for a 73-44 victory over Long Beach Jordan.

Ocean View plays against Serra of Gardena at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in the final, trying to win the tournament it hosts for the first time.

Avery Johnson had a game-high 20 points in the semifinal for the Seahawks (7-0). Brown had 17 points and nine rebounds and senior center Ryan Okwudibonye added eight points, 11 rebounds and two blocks.

Senior guard Steven Yoon, who saw increased ball-handling duties with junior guard Billy Keller out sick, added 10 points on a pair of three-pointers. He scored them all in the third quarter, which opened with Ocean View on a 22-3 blitz capped with a three-pointer from senior forward Chris Martinez.

“The last couple of games I’ve been trying to do too much,” Yoon said. “I started using my athleticism, started using my head. I needed to take a step back and just help my team...

We’re unbelievably good [when we play like that]. When we go on our runs, it’s pretty incredible to watch and to experience. It seems like most of the teams don’t know how to counter it, but we’ve just got to keep it consistent.”

Coach Jim Harris agreed.

“That’s who we are right now, as far as explosiveness,” Harris said. “We put together runs that most people don’t have an answer for. No one can make runs like that for 32 minutes, but we seem to flatten out pretty quickly too and kind of play the scoreboard a little bit. As we mature in this season, [we want to] appreciate and enjoy the ability that we have, but not rest on that. The sky’s the limit for this team.”

Sophomore center Conor Clifford and junior guard Luke Davis added fourth-quarter baskets for Ocean View, which also got solid minutes from sophomore guard Christian Rivera.

The final against Serra is a rematch of last year’s CIF Southern Section Division IV-AA title game, which the Seahawks won, 46-41. Ocean View is ranked No. 9 in Southern California by the Los Angeles Times, and Serra is No. 6.

“We know that they want us [for revenge] and we want them too,” Yoon said. “It’s going to be whichever team hits the other team in the mouth first, is going to win.”