DOWNEY – Less than 24 hours after wrapping up their overpowering run to a CIF Southern Section 3AA championship Saturday afternoon, the Pius X-St. Matthias Academy boys’ basketball coaches and players learned that the CIF State office did them no favors relative to the Southern Regional playoffs.
The Warriors, after whacking La Serna, 79-48, at Colony High to complete a five-game, their beatdown of their playoff competition – by a margin of 29.8 ppg – were moved up into the 16-team Division II regional bracket.
But, after Coach Donte Archie’s club improved to 30-4 with its 22nd consecutive win, 70-62 over perennial L.A. City power Westchester Tuesday night at PX/SM, maybe it was the rest of the Division II that has a tougher go of it after the move of the Warriors, right?
The Warriors, playing in front of an SRO gathering (500-plus, which is right at the enrollment at the school), committed enough turnovers in the second half – 12 – to prevent them from overwhelming the Comets.
However, on a night when Archie’s best offensive player – 6-foot-6 junior, Tyrone Riley, who took a big spill on a drive in the first half and played the rest of the way with a painful, uh, tailbone – missed 11 of 17 shots from the field, the Warriors came at the visitors from too many angles for them to cope with.
The left-handed Riley – who scored 53 points in the CIF SS semifinal vs. Buena and 33 against La Serna – didn’t hit a bucket Tuesday night until 1:01 remained in the second quarter and failed to convert from behind the arc.
But he did score 19 points (seven of nine on free throws) with 11 rebounds and three steals.
Tariq Bridges – one of four sophomores in the starting lineup – hit three 3s in route to his 13 points.
And, if lineup with four 10th graders and a junior isn’t enough of a statement about what this program isn’t capable of next season (say, a slot in the Platinum Division of the Classic at Damien and the CIF SS Open playoff pool; the program is also moving into the Del Rey League, joining potent opponents in Bishop Montgomery, St. Bernard, St. Anthony, and St. Paul), then its first two substitutes Tuesday night firmly drive the point home.
And both are juniors.
Six-three Tylon Williams hit the team’s other two 3s and was 10 of 10 on free throws (eight of those in the fourth quarter) for 19 points.
And 6-7, 220-poundish Edmari Binion grabbed four rebounds and blocked two shots while a fourth-quarter bucket.
But the start-to-finish standout for the Warriors was 6-8ish Douglas Langford.
And he’s an oh-so-rare example of a basketball player whose sense of self-worth isn’t linked to how many “touches”, “shots” he gets and points he scores.
“I’d like to get him get a little more aggressive (as a scorer),” Archie said after the game.
“He can do a lot of things, offensively, that he’s not using much right now.”
Imagine that: A coach almost pleading for a player to take more shots.
He was credited with six shots from the field – all layups – and converted five of them, along with three of four free throws, for 13 points.
But . . .
He also grabbed 20 rebounds, with three steals and three blocked shots.
There are players his size with more impressive vertical jumping ability – most of his rebounds came at or just slightly above the trim – than Langford possesses right now.
But few high school players, of any size, have the, well, knack for the positioning, timing, determination, and hands for rebounding as proficiently and relentlessly as Langford does.
Ah, hands. Langford, seemingly, just needs a couple of fingers on leather and he’s yanking a basketball into his firm grip.
“He catches everything,” Riley said, smiling matter-of-factly.
“I know if I throw it (a pass) anywhere near him, he’s got it. And once the ball comes off the rim, he’s going to grab it.”
It’s not a knack that has come naturally to Langford (pictured).
“I’ve worked a lot on it with my father,” he said Tuesday night.
“We work with tennis balls (catching them fired at close range or bouncing them off walls and catching them as cleanly as possible). “
Neither Archie nor his players were surprised to learn Sunday afternoon that they’d been bumped up to Division II.
They seem to relish the opportunity, feeling the competition they’d faced in November and December presented the caliber of challenges that will confront the in the tougher bracket.
“We played a lot of tough teams earlier in the season,” Riley said, alluding to the likes of the squads they faced in the Diamond Division of the Classic at Damien (notably, No. 1 D IV seed Valencia and Rolling Hills Prep, their last losses, on Dec. 27 & 28), as well as another D II quarterfinalist, Newport Pacifica Christian, which they beat by nine points on New Year’s Eve at Lynwood High.
“There’s no extra pressure. We will just prepare for our next game (at No. 3 seed Orange Lutheran Thursday night) like we did for this one.”
These are special times for the Warriors’ basketball program and the Pius X/St. Matthias Academy student body, administration, alumni and immediate surrounding cities of Downey and South Gate.
According to the school’s president, Dr. Christian De Larkin, the school’s enrollment – once close to 200 – has grown to 520 or so “an improvement of 14 percent over last year,” he said, whose enthusiasm for the Warriors’ on-court performance was as boundless as was Langford’s on the floor.
His optimism seemed contagious.
“Really exciting things are happening here now,” said the school’s Dean of Students, Pete Ramos.
The school’s basketball program has a rich tradition, producing noteworthy players who went on to careers as NBA guards, in Rick Adelman, (who led the Warriors to the 1965 4A title game against Long Beach Poly in the Long Beach Arena before starting at Loyola Marymount) and Lorenzo Romar (Class of 1978, before going to Cerritos College and the University of Washington.
They also became successful coaches, Adelman in 23 seasons with five NBA franchises, and Romar, in stints at Pepperdine (he’s on his second stop there now), Saint Louis and his college alma mater.
And Archie is building upon that tradition, his teams combining to go 88-21 – and win two CIF SS titles – over four seasons since his first squad finished 7-21 in 2018-19.
But no one within the team is spending anytime admiring the program’s recent successes.
There’s too much work yet to be done in a season the Warriors are doing their best to extend to a trip to Sacramento and state title game on March 11.
“We figured we’d ‘celebrate’ (the win over La Serna) for about a day,” Riley said.
“Everyone was excited at school (Monday). But we knew it was time to get back to work and ready for the next game.”
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