Culver City Squads Lose League Finales

This wasn't exactly the way the boys and girls basketball teams wanted to finish off the regular season, with home losses to their archrivals.

Yet, that's precisely what happened Thursday night. The boys fell to Beverly Hills, 59-53, and have to share second place in the Ocean League with Santa Monica, which pulled even with the Centaurs in the standings by beating Hawthorne in its regular season finale.

Culver City (19-7 overall, 6-4 in league) led by three points going into the fourth quarter but was outscored 19-10 over the final eight minutes. led the way for the Centaurs with 21 points, had 13 points and had nine and Julius Wilson added six. 

Julian Dakdouk had 17 points for the Normans (13-13, 3-7), who avenged a 64-61 loss earlier in the season at Beverly Hills.

The Centaurs lost three of their last four league games, but still qualified for the Southern Section playoffs, which start next week. 

The Culver City girls squad had already clinched third place in league by virtue of their win at Hawthorne and Beverly Hills' loss to Inglewood on Tuesday. So Thursday's game was all about pride... and the Normans came in with chips on their shoulders, having lost 56-41 on their home floor in the first round of league.

This time, the Normans prevailed 45-37 despite a 22-point, 15-rebound effort by . The problem for Culver City was that no other player reached double figures in either category. came the closest with seven points and six rebounds.

Despite suffering their third loss in four games, the Centaurs (14-13, 6-4) finished one game ahead of Beverly Hills (14-14, 5-5) and earned a spot in next week's Southern Section playoffs.