Echols, Foothill boys stand tallest as hosts win holiday tournament

On paper, Foothill's boys basketball team was facing a monumental mismatch inside on Friday night.

But on the court, the Falcons turned it to their advantage.

Chris Echols scored 21 points despite giving up 8 inches inside, and the Falcons defeated visiting Army-Navy (Calif.) 62-55 to win the Foothill Holiday Classic.

The 6-foot-5-inch Echols was going up against 7-1 Cheikh N'Diaye. But Foothill coach Kevin Soares got Echols the ball on the perimeter and let the senior attack the basket off the dribble.

"We noticed in prior games that (N'Diaye) wouldn't come out and guard whoever he was guarding," Soares said. "And Chris can handle the ball just a little bit. He did a pretty good job tonight. We just wanted to pull (N'Diaye) away from the basket and try to go by him."

That offensive strategy worked, and the Falcons also did a good job on the defensive side of the ball against N'Diaye, who has signed with Oregon State.

N'Diaye shot 2-for-9 from the field and finished with six points. He had 13 rebounds and four blocked shots.

"We played some defense, especially against the big guy," Soares said. "He's a load down there. You don't see too many 7-footers in town, so you have to adjust throughout the game, and I thought we did a pretty good job tonight."

Senior guard Elijah Smith did an outstanding job against Army-Navy point guard Devin Watson. Watson had scored 81 points in the Warriors' two previous games. Smith held him to 21, and Watson also turned the ball over nine times.

"Elijah's probably one of the best defenders in town, and he took on the challenge tonight of guarding a guy that put up 40 points in consecutive nights," Soares said. "Kudos to him for stepping up to the challenge."

Foothill junior guard Austin Starr was 3-for-12 on 3-pointers, but two of those came just when the Falcons needed them the most. Soares challenged Starr, yelling out that he had "to make a jump shot sometime."

Starr responded by knocking down back-to-back 3-pointers, the second one a long trey from the right wing that gave Foothill a 35-34 lead with 13:34 to play.

"He's got to become more consistent," Soares said. "He made two big 3s when we needed them to give us a little momentum."

Smith added 13 points, Starr had 11 points and six rebounds, and Taylor Montgomery had nine rebounds for Foothill (13-3). Starr was the tournament's Most Valuable Player.

The Falcons won their 10th consecutive game, and the team did it without last year's leading scorer, Brannon Cresanto, who didn't play in the tournament because of a leg injury.

"It was a total team effort tonight," Soares said. "Basketball's a team spot. And we won this championship as a team."

Contact prep sports editor Damon Seiters at dseiters@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4587. Follow @DamonSeiters on Twitter.