STUDIO CITY, Ca. – The Harvard-Westlake, Sierra Canyon and Bishop Montgomery boys’ basketball teams held off tough challenge of visitors Wednesday night in opening play of the State Southern Regional Open competition.
The wins by Harvard-Westlake (Santa Maria St. Joseph, 63-55), Sierra Canyon (San Diego St. Augustine, 80-74) and Bishop Montgomery (Mater Dei, 58-53) meant that – with top-seed Corona Centennial having a first-round bye – the No.’s 2, 3 and 4 seeds “held serve” and set up Saturday evening rematches of CIF Southern Section Open pool-play games.
In Saturday’s semifinals (scheduled for 6 o’clock tip-offs), Centennial (30-1, with a 27-game winning streak) plays host to 21-3 Bishop Montgomery while 25-3 Harvard-Westlake is at home to 25-4 Sierra Canyon.
The Centennial Huskies knocked off the Knights, 78-53, on the first night (Feb. 11) of Pool play, white Harvard-Westlake – on the road – toppled Sierra Canyon, 63-60, a week later on the final night of pool play.
The Huskies handled the Wolverines, 68-48, on Feb. 25 in the CIF SS Open title game.
Wednesday night the host Wolverines’ hopes of advancing in the regional competition were a bit wobbly much of the game against the Central Section runner-up St. Joseph team that took a 27-3 record into the game.
Led by 6-foot-5, 210-pound freshman (by way of Nigeria) Tounde Yessoufu, the Knights were up at intermission, 28-20.
Yessoufu (13 points and 10 rebounds in the first half) was too strong and too quick off his feet for post players Landon Williams (who fouled out early in the fourth quarter) and Jacob Huggins to cope with.
And that dominance continued into the third quarter, with he scored 11 points while grabbing three rebounds as his team built its advantage to 10 (38-28).
A couple of 3-pointers by senior Cameron Thrower helped get the Wolverines to within 43-38 after three quarters.
And, finally, the Wolverines were able to make it more difficult for the Knights to pass the ball into by the efforts of the third defender assigned to him, 6-7 junior Brady Dunlap.
Yessoufu got just two field goals, while missing three of his four free throws, to score seven points in the final eight minutes while finishing with game-highs of 27 points 14 rebounds.
“Brady did a great job of moving his feet making him more difficult for he (Yessoufu) to get his hands on the ball,” Wolverines’ Coach David Rebibo said of Dunlap, a prime reason assistant coaches from Cal, Colorado and Santa Clara were in the stands.
Dunlap hit four 3s, the last of those accompanied by a free throw after being fouled on the shot with 6:05 to go, tied the score (at 46) for the first time since early in the contest.
The Knights went back up on a Yessoufu’s final bucket with five minutes remaining but, after a HW timeout, the hosts took the lead, with 4:35 to go, by way of a 3-pointer by sophomore Trent Perry (after a pass from Dunlap).
The Wolverines pushed the advantage to five points before the visitors tied it via two free throws and a 3-pointer by senior guard Dre Roman with 1:36 to go.
Those were the last points by the Knights though, as the Wolverines closed it out with two free throws, with 1:19 to go by University of Pennsylvania-bound Thrower, a twisting layup by Perry as the shot clock was about to expire with 17 seconds remaining and four more free throws by Thrower.
Thrower led his team with 23 points, 12 of those in a perfect performance from the free-throw line.
Leave a Reply