LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – A boys’ basketball game a lot of folks – especially those with rooting interests for a nationally touted program based in the San Fernando Valley – have anticipated this season will come about after all Tuesday night.
Top-ranked and defending champion Corona Centennial High rolled to an eased-up, 76-55, victory over visiting Bishop Montgomery Saturday night to earn the right to play host to the Tuesday night CIF State Southern Open regional.
And, with a spot in the March 12 State title game in Sacramento at stake, the 31-1 Huskies’ 6 o’clock opponent will be . . . Sierra Canyon.
The Trailblazers, who lost to visiting Centennial in the 2021 Open final last June, came into the Regional field as the No. 3 seed after losing to Harvard-Westlake (which later fell to the Huskies in the final, 68-48, on Feb. 25) in a CIF Southern Section Open pool-play finale.
But, rolling across the SFV from Chatsworth to Studio City to take the role of “visitor” in the post-season for the first time since knocking off Sheldon in Sacramento during the 2019 State Open title game, Coach Andre Chevalier’s team (26-4) came away with a big hunk of revenge, 72-55.
Other Tuesday regional finals set Saturday night:
*Top seed Damien (70-65 over CIF SS D-1 champion St. Bernard) will play host to No. 2 Crean Lutheran (72-65 over Sherman Oaks Notre Dame) in the DI finale. It’s another “rematch”: The Spartans (30-4) came from 20 points down in the first half to edge the Saints (25-6), 64-59, in Irvine on Feb. 11’s first night of CIF SS Open Pool Play competition;
*Santa Ana Foothill (69-64 over Rancho Cucamonga), the No. 1 seed, will play host to No. 2 Los Altos (57-41 over Huntington Beach Edison) for a slot in the State DII game;
*DIII: The 3 seed, Calabasas Viewpoint (90-57 over San Diego Mt. Carmel) is at home to No. 5 L.A. Venice (49-47 over host and No. 1 Rancho Verde);
*DIV: The mind-blower in the entire Southern Regional is Valley Torah (72-59 over Long Beach Millikan), which, I believe, will try to become the first-ever 16 seed to represent the South in a state finale when it visits San Diego to play Scripps Ranch (70-57 over Golden Valley).
*DV: The No.’s 5 (Chaffey, 75-69 over Malibu) and 12 (Westminster La Quinta, 66-59 over Fontana) are set to play Tuesday night at Chaffey in Ontario for a trip to Sacramento.
Damien joins Crean Lutheran, Centennial, Los Altos and Clovis North (which visits San Francisco St. Ignatius for the North’s DI slot) as programs playing Tuesday night that were part of the Dec. 27-30, 2021 Classic at Damien field.
Two other teams that played in the Classic’s Platinum Division, Meridian (ID) Owyhee and Utah’s American Fork, won their state’s large-school championship divisions Saturday night.
St. Bernard (24-8) was knocked off by Owyhee in a Platinum opener or would have played Damien in the second round on Dec. 28.
But the Vikings and Spartans got that “matchup”, some nine weeks later, by way of their first- and second-round regional wins.
Damien – via 6-foot-8 Jimmy Oladokun Jr. and 6-7 senior Kaleb Smith – figured to have a significant advantage over the visitors in the post positions.
And that proved the case pretty much throughout a crowd of an estimated 1,500-plus Saturday, a healthy chunk of which made lengthy drives from the western portion of Los Angeles to support the Vikings.
Oladokun (19 points, 22 rebounds and five blocked shots), showing emphatically why he’s one of the better Class of 2023 prospects in the region, and Smith (17 points, nine rebounds and three assists) combined for 36 points and 31 rebounds.
Smith, who is committed to UC Riverside, hit a couple of first-half 3s and was perfect in six free throw attempts.
“That was the plan – to try to get the ball inside,” said Smith (pictured).
“We did a good job of doing that. And I thought we played with great unselfishness and really moved the ball around (the Vikings’ man-to-man and zone defenses).”
They needed every bit of the dominance by Oladokun and Smith, as well as the scoring of University of Colorado-bound R.J. Smith (no relation/18 points, including nine of 11 free throws), senior guard Spivey Word (three consecutive 3s in the third quarter) and the playmaking of senior point guard Bradley Xie, to hold off a team loaded with quality guards.
The Spartans built 12-point advantages twice in the fourth quarter but saw them shrink rapidly because of the perimeter excellence of juniors Tyler Rolison (24 points) and Darius Carr (17), as well as Long Beach State-bound Jason Hart Jr. (13, 11 after intermission).
With Rolison, Carr, 6-5 sophomore Kendyl Sanders and freshmen guards Caleb Versher and Joshua Palmer set to return, look for the Vikings to be among the Top 10 teams in SoCal in 2022-23.
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