RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, Ca. – The Mater Dei High boys’ basketball team – some 10 hours before it was set to board a Boston-bound flight at LAX for its next game – looked every bit like the solid favorite to win another Trinity League championship Wednesday night.
Coach Gary McKnight’s team trailed just once – at 2-zip, after a Kyle Evans layup on the first possession of the contest – while cruising past the host Santa Margarita Eagles, 64-46.
The victory improved the Monarchs to 2-0 in league (they won at Orange Lutheran to open Trinity play Friday night) and 16-2 overall.
The Eagles, who opened Trinity play with a win at JSerra on Jan. 5, suffered their first loss in 13 games this season.
Coach Justin Bell’s team committed six first-quarter turnovers, trailed by 15 points at intermission and was never closer than within 12 points (with 1:45 to go in the third quarter) the rest of the way.
The Monarchs – who were scheduled to gather at Mater Dei at 3 a.m. on Thursday to shuttle to LAX for their 6:30 flight east – are set to take on East Catholic (Manchester, CT) Friday evening at 6 (ET) in a Hoophall Classic game at Springfield (MA) College.
Mater Dei’s post duo, 6-foot-8 junior Zack Davidson and 6-10 freshman Tee Bartlett dominated most of the action at both ends of the floor with Davidson going for 22 points and nine rebounds and Bartlett 13 points, six rebounds, four assists and two blocks.
The affable Davidson has been on the “he’s a very good prospect” radar since well before he enrolled at Mater Dei.
But he didn’t get a lot of on-court time, in games, while playing behind Class of 2021 members Nick Davidson (his older sibling, a freshman at Nevada in Reno), Harrison Hornery (USC) and Wilhelm Breidenbach (Nebraska).
“I was improving and getting more confident every day in practice,” Davidson said after the game.
“I was patient because I had some good ‘mentors’ (in the aforementioned trio) and playing against them (in practice) was making be a better player.”
Davidson, the kid to beat for Trinity League Player of the Year honors, was just as impressed as were those in attendance with the performance of Bartlett, whose conditioning, low-post polish and sustained effort are markedly improved since the fall.
“He gets better every day (in practice),” Davidson said of Bartlett, who is from Southern California but attended middle school in Texas a year ago.
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