By DICK SPARRER
They had to go into overtime to do it, but the Fremont boys' basketball team stuck rival Homestead with a key loss last week.
Actually, it was the Fremont win that was more important than the Homestead loss, because it helped the Firebirds improve to a solid 4-1 in the El Camino Division of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League.
Fremont is in a hot race with Mountain View for the division title. The Spartans improved to 5-0 in league play last week with a win over, of all teams, Homestead.
The Firebirds opened the week with a 50-46 win over Wilcox, then backed that up with the 54-51 overtime win over the Mustangs on Friday night.
Rich Lockmanese led all Fremont scorers in the win over Homestead. The 6-foot-5 senior center poured in 14 points to figure as the only Firebird in double digits.
Melvin Rabena finished with eight points, including a three-point bucket, and Jabbar Burton pumped in a pair of threes on his way to seven points. Michael Hardwick added six points, including a three.
Reynold Carlos, Danny Douglas, Darren Lang and Tully Banta-Cain finished with four points each for the winners. Ben Skinner added two points and Warren Rick had one.
Brian Blasquez led the Mustangs with 14 points, including a couple of threes, and Steve Papoulies supported with 10 points. Chung Lai hit a pair of threes and finished with eight points for the Mustangs.
Jamie Belion came through with seven points, including a three, and Jimmy Olevson buried two threes to finish with six. Kayzell Milton tossed in four points and Jose Alvarez added two.
Earlier in the week, Lockmanese had jammed 18 points to lead the Firebirds to a come-from-behind win over Wilcox. Rabena and Lang supported with nine points apiece and Burton had eight. Hardwick hit four points and Skinner had two.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, January 29, 1997.
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