The last hurrah

Mike Sciacca

Tony Lipold has been coaching young kids for the past 30 years. He has

seen different degrees of player talent, seen some teams overachieve and

underachieve, and some live up to their potential.

But in his 30 years, there is one team that he has watched grow from

novice into one of the top teams in the Southland: The South Huntington

Beach Chargers, an eighth-grade National Junior Basketball All-Net

Division boys’ basketball team.

This band of seven -- Tim Golden, T.J. Lipold, Dylan Bowermaster,

Casey Becker, Thomas Marcin, Mike Hardwick and Taylor King -- began their

careers as inexperienced third-graders but have matured, Lipold said,

into fine young basketball players.

With high school approaching next fall the Chargers are playing their

final season together in 2001-02.

“They have really developed into a very fine team and that’s due to

the hard work they have put in on the court,” Lipold said.

Following their maiden season, several of the players became first

round draft choices as fourth-graders, which split up that third-grade

team and pitted the players as rivals on opposing teams. But when they

became fifth-graders, the team was reunited and, with Lipold as its

coach, they decided to play at the All-Net level.

All-Net basketball is played at the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade

levels. Lipold said the team wanted the challenge of playing against

stiffer competition so as fifth graders, they played at the sixth-grade

level.

They took their lumps, too, that first season, finishing at .500.

“It was really a learning experience for these kids. They were able to

take on some very talented teams,” he said.

The Chargers play in the Blue Conference, the top division. They took

the experience they gathered as fifth-graders and won the conference as

seventh-graders with a 12-2 record and went all the way to the division’s

national semifinal round, where they lost to eventual champion Henderson,

Nevada.

Last year, the Chargers went undefeated in Blue Conference action and

again played on the national semifinal stage and lost a one-point

heartbreaker to eventual champion Summerline, Nevada, on a buzzer-beating

shot.

It was their lone defeat in a 20-1 season.

“They love to play the game and their greatest attribute is that they

are not selfish. They know what role they play and accept it,” said

Lipold, who coached the Bolsa Grande High boys’ basketball team from

1979-87, was a men’s assistant coach at Long Beach City College for 11

years, where he won a state championship, and currently serves as

athletic director at Saddleback College.

All of his players, save one, are nearing six-feet as 13 year olds.

Lipold points out that Golden is a solid, versatile player; Bowermaster,

a very good outside shooter; Becker, an outstanding athlete; Marcin is

perhaps the best athlete on the team; Hardwick, quick and a gifted

defensive force; the 6-3 King, a really talented player, and his son,

T.J., the team’s most consistent player and a key big game performer.

At one time, in addition to playing NJB together, Golden, Lipold,

Marcin, Becker and Bowermaster all played together at Sts. Simon and

Jude. King was a prolific scorer in last year’s semifinal loss to

Summerline as he scored 36 points and nailed nine, three-point shots.

They have averaged 75 points per game and have scored 100 points on

five occasions the past four years.

This season, which is just two games old, the Chargers are 2-0.

They opened the season with a 60-36 whipping of Bakersfield behind

King’s 28 points and 18 more by Lipold. Last Sunday, they bolted to a

39-18 halftime lead over East Huntington Beach at Ocean View High and

never looked back in a 78-46 triumph. In that win, four players scored in

double figures: Lipold with 24, King had 22, Becker scored 14 and

Bowermaster added 10.

The team, which practices twice weekly, plays its home games at the

Edison High gym and, despite not having its full roster this weekend,

will host Monterey Park at noon on Sunday.

Lipold said that Golden, Marcin, Hardwick and his son, T.J., all could

end up at Edison. So might King, while Becker, whose brother, Stephen,

stars as a sophomore at Marina, will also become a Viking. Bowermaster,

he said, is off to Mater Dei.

“It’s too bad that they all won’t be playing on the same high school

team because that could be some team to watch,” Lipold added. * MIKE

SCIACCA is the education and sports reporter. He can be reached at (714)

965-7171 or by e-mail at michael.sciacca@latimes.com.