By Brandon HENSLEY

It was an off night for the Crescenta Valley High boys’ basketball team on Monday, which lost the home contest to Pasadena 63-44. The loss dropped the Falcons to 16-7 overall, and 6-4 in the Pacific League. The boys played Wednesday evening at CVHS against Hoover, the team’s final home game of the season.

There’s still a chance the Falcons could get a home playoff game, but they have some work to do to achieve that before the regular season ends on Feb. 11 at Arcadia High School. They have three games left, in two of which they will be heavy favorites: Friday at Glendale and the Apaches game. The one in between, a Tuesday tilt at Muir, will be especially tough. CV beat Muir on Jan. 19 60-51, a game in which Mustangs’ coach Simaine Stewart was furious over a perceived bias against his team by the officials, even though the number of free-throw attempts given to each team was the same (27).

If CV isn’t careful, it could get bumped down to fifth place in league when it’s all over. If, however, the team plays like it did against Muir, as well as a nice road victory over Burbank on Jan. 29 (61-58), it could potentially reach second place at the end, depending on how Burroughs finishes its season.

The Falcons overcame a slow start at Burbank and piled up an 18-point lead in the second half before holding off a furious Burbank rally. So it was disappointing for Coach Shawn Zargarian to have his team play so flat on Monday when the game meant so much. The Falcons only trailed 27-23 at halftime, but could muster just 21 points in the second half while Pasadena scored 36. Pasadena previously beat the Falcons 65-49 in January.

The game at Glendale on Friday is set for 7 p.m.

  Brandon Hensley