BELLFLOWER, Ca. – Seniors Scotty Washington (16 points) and Lamaj Lewis (19) and junior Jeremiah Nyarko (20) combined for all but 14 of their team’s points as St. John Bosco High’s boys’ basketball pulled away to knock off visiting Mater Dei, 69-56, in a Trinity League finale Thursday night.
It was the first loss of the season for the Monarchs (24-1 overall and 9-1 in league), who clinched the league title Tuesday night with a win at Santa Margarita.
The host Braves improved to 19-2 and 8-2 and enhanced the odds that they will be one of the CIF Southern Section’s eight-team Open Division Playoff field that will be announced Sunday morning.
Mater Dei was playing without four of its top seven players to varying degree of injury,
Only senior and University of Nebraska-bound Wilhelm Breidenbach (diagnosed with a torn meniscus earlier this week), among those hobbled, isn’t expected back on the floor for the team’s May 28 CIF expected Southern Section Open Division playoff opener.
The Monarchs close regular season with non-league games against Rolling Hills Prep and San Diego Cathedral Prep, Friday and Saturday evenings, respectively.
In what was likely the first time in Gary McKnight’s 39 seasons as the head coach at Mater Dei, the Monarchs started three freshmen (guards Brady Karich, Scotty Belnap and Troy Jenkins) with the unavailability of the aforementioned Breidenbach, junior starting guards Mason Ressler and Gabriel Quiette and sophomore reserve forward Zack Davidson.
Despite that, they still led, 23-19, with about four minutes to go before the Braves closed the second quarter on a 15-5 run behind the 6-foot-5 Washington’s seven points.
Lewis (bound for Loyola-Marymount) and the 6-8 Nyarko combined for 14 points to pad their team’s advantage to 10 points after three quarters. Nyarko had a team-high 10 rebounds.
Six-six junior reserve Brady Minter hit five 3s to score 15 points for the Monarchs while the other two usual starters on the floor for McKnight’s crew, Nick Davidson and Harrison Hornery, scored 14 and 13, respectively.
The announcements for all of the playoff brackets are supposed to come out of the Southern Section’ Los Alamitos-based office Sunday morning.
The Braves’ only losses came to Santa Margarita (on the road, 61-58 in OT, on April 21) and Mater Dei (57-54 on May 5 in Santa Ana).
They’ve beaten Mater Dei teams at home four times in four years.
I don’t think the title of your article matches the content lol. Just kidding, mainly because I had some doubts after reading the article.