Bring on the Comets

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Ed Waters is playing with house money now. The first-year Crenshaw boys’ basketball coach -- and the first basketball coach there to follow the legendary Willie West -- took a big step for what is now his program by taking the 10th-seeded Cougars on the road and defeating seventh-seeded Jordan in a City Section Championship Division first-round playoff game.

Crenshaw’s reward? A date with Westchester, seeded second, on the Comets’ home floor next Wednesday.

Certainly Waters won’t go out of his way to inflame Westchester, which has become the kind of dominant boys’ basketball program that Crenshaw used to be under West. But Waters relishes the chance for his young team -- 10 of his 15 players on the roster are sophomores and juniors -- to face a team like Westchester, which now always expects to be in the City championship game.

‘That was our motivation (in beating Jordan),’ Waters said. ‘We don’t get to play Westchester in the regular season or in tournaments, and we’ve kind of been going around in a circle. So we look forward to playing them.’

-- Mike Terry