AZUSA – Two years ago he was one of the members of the supporting cast – albeit a very high-powered one – to National Player of the Year Lonzo Ball on the road to Chino Hills High’s first-ever CIF Southern Section basketball championship.
Saturday night, though, now-junior Onyeka Okongwu showed why he was The Man on the Huskies’ successful run to a second Southern Section title.
The 6-foot-9 Okongwu continued his unadulterated dominance while leading his team to a 72-56 win over Pasadena in front of a packed Felix Event center on the campus of Azusa Pacific University in the CIF SS Division I championship game.
He overwhelmed the Bulldogs at nearly every turn – at both ends of the floor – while scoring 38 points to go with 18 rebounds, six blocked shots (and, seemingly, countless “shot alterations”) and three assists as he and his teammates withstood the full-court pressure defense and the superb Pasadena’s superb, Bryce Hamilton-led perimeter offensive attack.
The Huskies improved to 21-11 and beat five playoff opponents by a margin of no fewer than 11 points.
They and the 23-7 Bulldogs (whose 16-game win streak was snapped by Okongwu & Co.) will be the 5 and 6 seeds, respectively, from the Southern Section when the State Southern Regional Division I playoffs get underway Wednesday night.
The top four seeds from the SS were reserved for the four first-round losers in the SS’s eight-team Open Division bracket (St. John Bosco, Crespi, Rancho Christian and Santa Margarita, in that order).
But, of course, there isn’t going to be a team in 16-team regional field bracket that is going to relish a showdown with Chino Hills – or Pasadena – regardless of what CIF Section it belongs to.
The State Northern and Southern Regional playoff brackets in all divisions are scheduled to be released early Sunday evening.
Also turning in impressive efforts for Coach Dennis Latimore’s Chino Hills Crew Saturday night were seniors Ofure Ujadughele (16 points, nine rebounds and five assists) and Andre Ball (eight points, five rebounds and four assists).
And the Huskies also did a solid and collective job while defending the UNLV-bound Hamilton (22 points but he missed 17 of 25 field-goal attempts), as well as senior point guard Darius Brown II (10 points but just two of eight from the floor).
Another senior, forward Tavian Percy, was the Bulldogs’ best player Saturday night with 16 points (six of 11 from the field, including four 3s).
In the other boys’ SS finals played Saturday at APU:
*Santa Barbara San Marcos 67, Riverside Poly 47 (2A): Seniors Jackson Stormo, Stefan Korfas and Ryan Hodges combined 50 points as the Royals dominated the Bears from Jump Street while en-route to their first-ever sectional basketball title.
The Royals ran their offense through the 6-9, 260-pound (give or take) Stormo, who scored 17 points and grabbed 11 rebounds.
Ironically, Jon Korfas – the star of the 1980-81 unbeaten San Marcos squad that lost to Long Beach Poly in the 4A title game – is an assistant to Royals’ head coach Landon Boucher.
Stefan Korfas – his son – led the Royals with 19 points and five assists.
The Bears – who were playing in their first section championship game since a fellow named Reggie Miller was a senior – got 19 points from standout sophomore guard Lamont Butler, who was hounded into 15 misses in his 21 shots from the floor.
*Brentwood 48, Crossroads 41 (2AA): The Eagles lost twice to the Roadrunners during Gold Coast League play but prevailed Saturday afternoon in the most important of their three meetings this season while collecting their second consecutive section title under Coach Ryan Bailey.
Crossroads led by as many as seven points a couple of times in the first half and by five points at intermission.
But the Eagles went ahead to stay (at 32-31) via a Sam Clareman 3-point a little more than a minute into the fourth quarter then controlled things down the stretch via sharp offensive execution, dialed-in half-court defense and a dominant rebounding effort by junior Braelee Albert (when he snatched seven of his 17 rebounds).
Albert, whose buzzer-beating 3-pointer gave the Eagles the 2017 title 2A title against Burbank, also scored 14 points with five assists while teammates Charlie Wadler and JR Olofson scored 10 points apiece.
Shareef O’Neal blocked five shots for the Roadrunners but finished with just nine points and five rebounds but didn’t score or grab a rebound in the fourth quarter.
*Nogales78, Foothill Technology 65 (5AA): The Nobles built a 21-point advantage at intermission only see it that edged trimmed to 10 late in the fourth quarter but still came away with the title hardware in a game that tipped at 10 a.m.
Juniors Dale Batac went for 30 points while classmate Bershoun Levi grabbed 14 rebounds for Nogales.
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