RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA – The Notre Dame High basketball team gets its third pop in less than a month at Mission League foe Harvard-Westlake Friday night.
And Knights’ Coach Matt Sargeant would have it no other way.
“The road to the (CIF Southern Section) Open championships go through Harvard-Westlake,” he said Tuesday night, moments after his team had held off the host Santa Margarita Eagles, 67-59, in an Open Division Pool A playoff game.
With the pool play structure, the Knights-Wolverines’ clash in Studio City has been set since the CIF SS office unveiled the playoff pools and brackets on Feb. 8.
But Notre Dame’s Tuesday night win – after home victories against JSerra and La Mirada last week – coupled with the Wolverines’ come-from-behind, 61-48, win against visiting JSerra, locked in a definitive prize Friday night:
The winner cinches a slot in the March 1 championship game, against the Pool B winner, in the Toyota Arena in Ontario.
Harvard-Westlake (29-1) knocked off the Knights on their home court in Sherman Oaks on Jan. 24 (73-63), then edged them in Studio City on Feb. 5 (67-64) in the championship game of the Mission League tournament.
Notre Dame (25-6) led by as many as 14 points in the third quarter and 12 with a bit more than six minutes remaining before the Eagles (22-7) hit a flurry of 3s – coupled with some hasty shot attempts by the Knights – in the final five minutes.
Kaiden Bailey hit one of those 3s from the right wing, while being fouled, with 36 seconds to go to get his team to within 61-59.
But Bailey missed the free throw, and the visitors closed out the scoring with two buckets by Tyran Stokes sandwiched around two Lino Mark free throws.
The 6-foot-7 Stokes (pictured) scored 24 points, despite missing five of 12 free throws, and grabbed 12 rebounds.
Sophomore guard NoVorro Bowman scored nine of his 13 points in the fourth quarter while Bailey led Santa Margarita with 19 and Dallas Washington and Brayden Kyman added 13 apiece.
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