Joe Sterling, Harvard-Westlake win California Live title (OCYSF bracket)

Lance Smith

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Joe Sterling, Harvard-Westlake win California Live title (OCYSF bracket) image

Andy Abeyta/The Desert Sun / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn

Big-name players constantly come and go for most of Southern California's top high school basketball programs.

But hardly ever do the transition periods look as seamless as they almost always do at Harvard-Westlake. And that makes perennial national contention look way too easy.

Despite recently graduating one of the top players in program history in 5-star forward Nikolas Khamenia (Duke), Harvard-Westlake more or less dominated at California Live, going 4-0 in arguably the toughest bracket (OCYSF) for a title.

The Wolverines opened up with 14-point victories over St. Bernard and Crean Lutheran, routed Inglewood 90-64, and took down Santa Margarita 69-60 for the crown. 4-star senior guard Joe Sterling was one of the event's top performers as expected and had 23 points, four made threes, five rebounds in the finals.

The rest of the bracket consisted of more standout programs: Millennium (AZ), Roosevelt (Eastvale), Etiwanda, Francis Parker, Jesuit, Mayfair, O'Connor (AZ), Ironwood (AZ), Bellarmine Prep, Democracy Prep (NV), and Bakersfield Christian.

A week prior, Harvard-Westlake had a strong showing at Section 7, making the semifinals and nearly defeating eventual champion Salesian (Richmond) in what might've been Section 7's toughest bracket, the AIA.

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Lance Smith

Lance has covered high school basketball, football and softball since 2019. A graduate of The USC Marshall School of Business, Smith dabbles in linear algebra and football and basketball computer rankings.