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FEBRUARY 5, 2026
By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X
CYPRESS-It’s only fitting that two longtime rivals from the old Academy League would face each other in the final 605 League contest under the current format. Oxford Academy and Whitney High faced each other this past Wednesday in a tie-breaker game to decide who would get the league’s final automatic berth in next week’s CIF-Southern Section divisional playoffs.
Whitney needed to win because it finished the regular season under .500 while the Patriots entered the game with a 14-13 mark. However, David Jung scored the first basket of the game, added another two minutes later and finished with a game-high 29 points as Whitney’s season ended in a 58-35 loss.
The Patriots and Wildcats have been league rivals since the 2002-2003 season and have faced each other on the court 50 times, including a pair of third place tiebreaker contests. On Feb. 10, 2017, Whitney took that season’s series with a 58-17 win but had to forfeit a pair of games and missed the playoffs. Still, Whitney’s 30 victories over the Patriots since 2004 are the most against any opponent in the CIF-SS.
“We started off really, really sluggish and it proceeded to go [downhill] the rest of the game,” said Whitney first-year head coach Jazzy Kruczynski. “I think the kids are still affected from last night’s blowout against Pioneer that we suffered. It’s hard; it’s hard for these kids to bounce back.”
Whitney (10-19, 4-6) got to within a point at 8-7 following a three-pointer from junior Kimian Huang with 2:04 left in the first quarter and again at 13-12 after a bucket from sophomore Mateo Aquino with 5:19 left in the second quarter. After that, the ‘Cats wouldn’t get closer than four points and would score consecutive points only twice in the second half.
If it wasn’t Jung, who scored 11 points in the team’s second meeting on Jan. 21 at Whitney, that plagued the visitors, then it was the lack of scoring from senior William Kang, the team’s season point leader. He would be limited to eight points on two of 13 shooting from the field, grabbed a pair of rebounds and had two assists. Meanwhile, junior Jack Diancin did all he could to carry the team, scoring a dozen points and pulling down nine rebounds.
“It comes down to a team effort,” said Kruczynski. “It didn’t just come down to William not being able to score his points, or [junior] Jezreel [Dela Cruz] or Jack. It came down to making sure we executed the little things, whether it be cutting when their teammates drive or setting good ball screens. I felt like today, we didn’t set really good screens, and because of that, Oxford was able to capitalize and put pressure on us.”
Whitney also had issues in the rebounding department, collecting 20 for the game and only four offensive boards, all coming in the opening quarter. Meanwhile, the Patriots were getting all the extra opportunities and if it wasn’t coming from Jung, then Victor Chi (12 points) and Colin Das (11 points) were causing more problems for the Wildcats. Those three combined to go 22 of 42 from the field. In fact, the only bench points from the Patriots came in the form of a three-pointer from Dexter Villapando with 25.1 seconds left in the game.
“He’s a skilled player,” Kruczynski said of Jung. “We knew going in he was going to be one of their guys who was going to be one of their top scorers. We tried our best to really contain him, but he did a good job of not only driving but facilitating the ball and passing it around and getting open guys their looks.”
The loss this past Wednesday ends a streak of three straight seasons in which Whitney had advanced to the postseason. Kruczynski will lose a pair of starters in Kang and senior Shayadheeran Saravanakumar, but the future is bright going into what figures to be an easier league next season with a trio of junior starters, plus as many as five returning bench players.
“It was a fun season overall,” said the rookie varsity coach. “Just coming in late…it’s really tough being able to try to work in a system and not being able to get it there fully all the way. And then the schedule we had this year, which was back to back tournaments, and then back to back games. It just felt like we didn’t have enough practice time. It just sucks that we couldn’t get a playoff berth.”
There was a three-way tie for third place in the league with Artesia High being the other team. But after the Pioneers lost the coin flip earlier in the week, that left Oxford Academy and Whitney to battle it out. When Artesia lost the coin flip, it also ended a 44-year playoff run.
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