MISSION VIEJO – The competition so far has anything but the caliber that it will face once Trinity League play gets underway.
But the JSerra High basketball team, under its first-season Head Coach Keith Wilkinson, has used its first two games in the Diablo Inferno at Mission Viejo High this week to demonstrate why it’s going to be a problem for the other five programs in the toughest hoops league in at least the western portion of the U.S. of A. this season.
Less than 24 hours after the Lions opened their season with a 51-point victory over Woodbridge, they jumped out to a 20-point advantage Tuesday night after the first quarter against Fairmont Prep before cruising to the 67-52 victory.
The Lions returned three key players from the team that was 18-9 last season (including a Trinity win over St. John Bosco under former Coach Zach Brogdon), notably 6-foot-5 forward D.J. Rodman.
But the improvement of two other returnees, seniors Juwon Ganiyu (6-8) and Kevin White (6-4), as well as the addition of transfer guards in juniors Justin Williams (Canyon of Anaheim) and Ian Martinez (Cantwell-Sacred Heart), makes this squad capable of impacting the pecking order of the Trinity League as well as challenging for a spot in the eight-team, CIF Southern Section Open Division playoff field.
Rodman (PICTURED) has become a much more consistent jump shooter – with more range, as his five 3s among his team-high 23 points Tuesday night revealed.
Ganiyu has become a forceful rebounder and shot blocker, and more confident low-post scorer, while White remains a scoring threat from the wings or the post.
But the addition of Williams and Martinez is what has making this squad one capable of evolving into capable of threatening even the state’s most dominant program (Mater Dei) in the Trinity League race, albeit cut in half to five games.
Williams has all of the tools that coaches – on any level – want to see in a point guard:
He’s a skilled handler and passer, plays with exceptional pace (“fast” or “slow”) and selfless.
Martinez, a standout this past spring and summer for Pat Barrett’s Southern California All-Stars who also starred from the Costa Rican national junior team, is, at a long-limbed 6-3, is a spectacular athlete with improved accuracy from deep who can soar above multiple defenders to score in-close. He scored 20 points Tuesday.
And Wilkinson – a Capistrano Valley graduate who also played at USC and coached most recently at UC Riverside – has a couple of other significant “X factors”.
Those are the 6-7 and left-handed Paxton Burzell, who played little last season but is one of the better sophomores in Orange County, as well as 6-11 Tesoro junior Hugo Clarkin (another southpaw), who becomes eligible after Christmas following a CIF-mandate 30-day period since he didn’t make a change of residency while transferring.
JSerra, which also plays Box Hill (from Australia) and Carlsbad this week at Mission Viejo, is in the Sonora-High North Orange County Tournament next week.
The Lions open Trinity League play at Mater Dei on January 9, and follow with a home game against Mater Dei two days later.
Fairmont Prep, coached by former JSerra Coach and Long Beach State standout Joedy Gardner, has a chance to make a deep run in the Southern Section’s 4AA division.
Junior guard Atin Wright, a transfer from Lakewood High, scored 16 of his game-high 29 points in the fourth quarter Tuesday night.
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