ORANGE – All but two of the points scored by the JSerra High boys basketball team Wednesday night came from players who weren’t wearing Lions’ uniforms a year ago.
Coach Keith Wilkinson’s team’s 55-45 win at Orange Lutheran improved the Lions’ records to 16-3 overall and 2-0 in the Trinity League.
So, yeah, it’s safe to suggest that not only are the seven newcomers who got significant playing time for Wilkinson gifted but that they seem to be meshing quite well, too.
Well, sort of . . .
The Lions, No. 4 in this week’s latest CIF Southern Section computerized ratings and 5 in the BurlisonOnBasketball SoCal Top 30, have just one loss in their past 17 games.
And that was a 65-50 decision to Harvard-Westlake (No. 3 in each of the above rankings) on Dec. 21 at L.A. Cathedral High.
They followed with a National Division title run at the Torrey Pines Holiday Classic, closing with consecutive wins over San Diego County’s two best teams (Montgomery and Carlsbad), and one of NorCal’s three best clubs (San Francisco Riordan) in the finale.
The Lions opened Trinity League with a 42-point decision against Servite on Jan. 3.
But – at least on offense – Wilkinson doesn’t think his team was as crisp Wednesday night as it has been and will need to be to push for a league title and secure a second consecutive CIF SS Open Division slot.
“Credit to Coach (Daniel) Dunbar (of Orange Lutheran),” Wilkinson said.
“They did a good job of running the (35-second) shot clock down and taking us out of rhythm, offensively.
“In hindsight, maybe we should have pressured them a little more (defensively) to try to speed them up.”
Two of Orange Lutheran’s four second-quarter turnovers melded a four-point lead into a two-point deficit, and a “rushed” (and missed) shot attempt – relative to the pace they played at previous – by the Lancers with 14 seconds to go was turned into a buzzer-beating layup by the Lions’ B.J. Davis-Ray.
The visitors’ advantage turned into as many 12 points – twice – in the third quarter before the Lancers got to within four points with about two minutes to go.
The Lions closed things out in large part by hitting 14 of 16 free throws in the final quarter.
Newcomers Davis-Ray (18/Duncanville, TX), Brannon Martinsen (16/Mater Dei) and Grayson Sinek (15/La Habra) combined for all but six of JSerra’s points.
The 6-foot-7 Martinsen (pictured during the 2024 Pangos All-American Camp) became eligible on Dec. 27 (for the Lions’ Torrey Pines game with Montgomery), so the Wednesday night game was his fifth with his new program.
“I thought, once we got Brannon back, we were close to ‘coming together’,” Wilkinson added.
“But we had a tough night, catching the ball and finishing some shots that were right at the rim.”
The Lancers (11-7 and 0-2), coming off a Trailblazer Division championship in the Mesa (AZ) Tournament of Champions last week, were led by the 13 points of junior guard Joe Pfeiffer and 11 (as well as eight rebounds and three blocked shots) from sophomore center Benjamin Dzabatou.
With the early Thursday afternoon news that Friday’s Mission/Trinity Showcase (set for the Intuit Stadium Arena in Inglewood) was being postponed because \of the cataclysmic Southern California fires, the Trinity League portion of those games are now scheduled on home courts Friday night at 7’clock: No. 2 St. John Bosco (17-1 and 1-0) at No. 20 Mater Dei (13-4 and 1-0); JSerra at No. 10 Santa Margarita (14-3); and Servite (11-6) at Orange Lutheran.
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