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Frank Burlison | High School Basketball | College Basketball

Sophomores make it a Memorable Monday for Centennial hoopers

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CORONA, Ca. – Centennial High’s sophomore class helped get the week in CIF Southern Section Boys’ Basketball playoff action off to a rousing start Memorial Day evening.

Coach Josh Giles’ 10th graders combined for 58 points to help the host Huskies pull away from the Damien Spartans, 82-69, in an Open Division “Pool B” contest.

The game – like other Open Pool competition and the numerical divisional SS quarterfinals – was scheduled for Tuesday night.

But it was played on Monday because Centennial has graduation festivities in its gymnasium Tuesday.

The No. 6 seed visitors (27-3) burst to a 17-10 advantage, about five and a half minutes into play, behind the jump shooting of 6-foot-4 junior R.J. Smith, who scored 10 points in that stretch and had 15 by intermission.

But the No. 2 seed Huskies (19-2) – who started four sophomores and one of the better junior guards in Southern California, Donovan Dent – went on a 14-zip sprint, capped by two Dent free throws 6:27 to go before intermission.

The Spartans (who opened the playoffs last Friday night with a 55-51 win at Mater Dei and close pool play by playing host to Harvard-Westlake this Friday evening), scored the first nine points of the third quarter to take a five-point advantage and spur a Giles’ timeout with five minutes to go after USC-bound Malik Thomas capped the spurt with a jump shot.

When play resumed one of those sophomores – guard Kylan Boswell, who didn’t play in the team’s Friday night home loss to Harvard-Westlake because he was in Houston for USA BB 16 trials – was the linchpin behind an 11-0 run for Centennial.

The 6-2, 185-pound Boswell – who returned to Southern California Sunday night – started the spurt with a 3 deep into the shot clock, fed 6-10 sophomore Devin Williams for a dunk, added another deep jumper (just inside the arc) and then assisted on one of two more Williams buckets.

Boswell (pictured) finished with 13 points, seven assists and five rebounds and his defense helped limit Smith to just five points in the second half on two of seven shooting.

Another sophomore post, 6-6 Aaron McBride, scored 11 of his 17 points in the final quarter for the Huskies.

The most significant of those points when he banked in a 3 from the top of the key near the end of a shot clock, putting his team up by six points with five minutes to go.

Another gifted 10th grader, 6-8 Jimmy Oladokun, hit an 18-footer off a pass from Smith to get the visitors to within 64-60.

But the Huskies hit 12 of 14 free throws the rest of the way to close it out.

Thomas scored 25 of his 32 points in the second half, hitting three 3s (one of those turned into a 4-point shot after knocking in a free throw while being fouled on one of them).

Dent – who did a reasonable job of contesting many of those shots by Thomas – scored nine of his 17 points in the fourth quarter, seven of those on free throws.

Sophomore Jared McCain added 15 points for the Huskies – including a buzzer-beating 3, following a pass from Boswell, in the first quarter.

The Huskies are at home to Mater Dei Friday in their final pool game.

In Tuesday Southern Section action of note:

*Open: Harvard-Westlake (16-3) is at Mater Dei (26-2) in the other Pool B game.

KDOC will telecast the Ribet Academy (11-2) at Sierra Canyon (13-0) Pool A game (at 7:30) while St. John Bosco (19-3) visits Etiwanda (10-1) with a 7 o’clock tipoff schedule.

*D-1: Top seed Heritage Christian cruised past Loyola Friday after its bye into the second round.

The going should be a lot tougher Tuesday night, though, with while visiting Windward – the division’s defending champion.

Junior guard Dylan Andrews, who missed much of the regular season with a leg injury, is healthy for Windward and sparked playoff wins over Beverly Hills and St. Anthony.

There’s a cool “South Orange County” matchup in the other quarterfinal in the upper bracket, where No. 4 seed Capistrano Valley in Mission Viejo is home to JSerra of San Juan Capistrano Valley.

There’s an In-N-Out literally at the mid-point between the respective campuses, basically two miles apart.

In the lower part of the bracket, a third Del Rey League meeting between Bishop Montgomery and St. Bernard awaits on Friday – if they can get by visiting Oak Park and Chaminade, respectively, Tuesday night.

*D2AA: Top seed and once-beaten Colony is at home in Ontario against No. 8 Los Altos.

The hosts are loaded with quality underclassmen by led by one of the best senior guards anywhere, Santa Clara-bound Brenton Knapper, while also once-beaten Los Altos has its own formidable underclass duo in 7-foot sophomore Jazz Gardner and 6-4 freshman Seven Bahati.

 

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