The Windward High boys’ basketball team extended its winning streak on the Damien High home floor to four Friday night.
More importantly, the 67-60 victory over the host Spartans earned Coach D.J. Gay’s team a slot in the CIF Southern Section’s Division 1 title championship game next Saturday evening in Ontario.
The 28-3, No. 2 seed Wildcats – who will face top-seed Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks at 8 o’clock in the Toyota Arena – extended their overall winning streak to 18.
Their last loss came on Dec. 27 to Northern California’s top-ranked club, Salesian of Richmond, 70-66, in the first round of the Platinum Division of the Classic at Damien.
They won their next three games to capture the Platinum consolation crown in Damien’s Athletic Center – the same building in which they bagged their CIF SS title shot Friday night.
“We know this gym pretty well,” said Windward junior point guard Gavin Hightower, smiling after his 10 points, nine assists and near-flawless leadership and decision-making helped his team overcome the presence of Damien’s 7-footer junior Nate Garcia and a large and vocal crowd.
The Wildcats certainly were quite comfortable shooting in the building, knocking in five 3s in the first quarter and six more in a second half in which they outscored the hosts by 12 points.
Six-four Nasir Luna – the only non-junior in Gay’s starting lineup – hit three of those 3s in the first quarter and three more in the third while scoring a team-high 20 points in an overall seven of 11 shooting performance.
If there had been an NBA-distance, 3-point arc painted on the Athletic Center, a healthy chunk of Luna’s buckets would have been launched from behind it.
Gay, the starting point guard on the Kawhi Leonard-led San Diego State team that lost to eventual national champion Connecticut during a West Regional semifinal in the Honda Center 13 years ago, was hired to replace Colin Pfaff two springs ago.
How long did it take him to realize not to get squeamish when Luna pulled up and launched from that distance?
“The first ‘open gym’ (watching the Wildcats play after he was hired),” Gay replied afterward, smiling while greeting well-wishers.
Just as significant as Hightower’s playmaking, the Wildcats’ shooting range and their scoring balance (juniors Jeremiah Hampton, J.J. Harris and Louis Bond chipped in with 16, 10 and nine points, respectively) were to the win was the defensive scheme they executed well, especially in the second half.
Like every other coach whose team faced the Spartans (26-5 and bound for a Feb. 27 D-I State Southern Regional playoff game) this season, Gay knew the task in front of him.
“He’s something,” Gay said before the game of the steadily improving Garcia, likely the best “true center” in the state-wide junior class.
“But they have a lot of other guys who can hurt us, too.”
With that in mind, he wasn’t going to “sell out” his defense by constantly trying to swarm Garcia with multiple defenders and leaving Spartans open on the perimeter for clean looks at jump shots or short drives.
“We decided to let their big guy his 20, 25, 30 (points) or whatever,” Gay said. “We just didn’t want to allow those other guys to hit a bunch of 3s and beat us.”
His players bought in and implanted the plan well enough to book another long bus trip to Ontario next week.
“The plan was to play him (Garcia) straight up, even when he caught the ball in the lane,” Hightower said. “But once he tried to put the ball down (dribble), we’d send another defender at him and still try to get to their shooters.”
That approach had mixed success in the first half, as Garcia scored seven points in each quarter while Spartans Xavier Clinton, Elijah Garner and Jacob Allen each knocked in 3s.
Damien started the third quarter with the ball and Clinton (the only starting senior, with a team-high 20 points) missed a clean look at a 3 than would have padded the Spartans’ edge to eight points.
Then, with the help of sloppy Damien passing and driving decisions that led to seven turnovers in the quarter, the Wildcats’ offense was back in gear.
Hightower’s layup tied the score at 38 with 4:17 to go and Bond’s spectacular, twisting drive put his team up to stay on the next possession.
Luna’s fifth 3 pushed his team’s edge to seven points with a bit more than a minute to go in the quarter.
A 3 by Garner (14 points and eight rebounds) with 20 seconds remaining put the Spartans in good shape to go into the fourth quarter trailing by just four points
But Luna hit his sixth 3 with five seconds to go hush the crowd a bit and send the Wildcats back to the bench with a seven-point lead.
And the advantage hit double figures when Bond hit a 3 to cap the first possession of the fourth quarter. The Spartans never got closer than within five points the rest of the way.
Garcia, limited to three shots and harassed into a couple of third-quarter turnovers, scored just five points in the second half to go with 10 rebounds and three assists.
In other Southern Section action:
*Like Division 1, the Open championship game will feature the division’s top two playoff seeds.
Harvard-Westlake (29-3) continued to drop the hammer on its opposition, smacking visiting St. John Bosco, 63-40, to secure its spot in the Feb. 23, 8 p.m. finale at Cal Baptist in Riverside.
The Wolverines’ competition, Eastvale Roosevelt (30-2), had already locked in its title spot prior to its final Pool B game Friday night at home.
The Mustangs needed a buzzer-beating 3 by junior Issac Williamson to send the game with Mater Dei into overtime before prevailing, 80-76.
*Rolling Hills Prep (57-50 over Thousand Oaks) and St. Anthony (75-57 against Heritage Christian) had long SoCal freeway treks Friday but came away with slots in the D-2AA championship game. The date, location and time will be announced out of the CIF SS office in Los Alamitos Monday.
*Long Beach Poly – after home quarterfinal and semifinal decisions of one and three points, respectively, against Murrieta Valley and Corona del Mar – will be in the D-2A title game, with opponent, day, location, and time TBD.
The Jackrabbits will get the winner of Saturday night’s San Gabriel Academy at Marina semifinal.
*Bosco Tech – the CIF SS D-5AA winner a year ago – moved up to 3AA this season but is back in the championship hunt after edging Santa Barbara, 59-57, Friday night.
Coach Mike Romo’s Tigers will take on Alemany (which handled Woodbridge, 60-45, Friday night) in the finale, site, date, time TBD.
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