Trinity League teams bid bye-bye to home-court advantages Friday night

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BELLFLOWER – Bye the way, having Wednesday’s opening night of the CIF Southern Section playoffs may not have been advantageous to the Trinity League co-champion’s Open Division aspirations.

The St. John Bosco Braves and Santa Margarita, the aforementioned  teams who held No.’s 3 and 4 seeds in the 10-team division who had byes in the first round Wednesday, made their playoff debuts Friday night at home.

It didn’t go well for either.

No. 7 seed Redondo Union (24-4), which had dropped its past two games by a collective margin of five points, hit 14 3-pointers, six of those by senior guard Brayden Miner – including the go-ahead bucket with 57 seconds to go – to stun the Braves, 77-75.

And No. 8 JSerra (22-8) was beaten twice in Trinity play by No. 4 Santa Margarita (22-6).

But the third time was quite the charm for Keith Wilkinson and his Lions, who left Rancho Santa Margarita with a 63-51 victory by way of the 21 points from senior B.J. Davis-Ray and 19 from junior Branden Martinsen.

The upset victories propel JSerra and Redondo Union into Tuesday night games at the overall No.’s 1 and 2 seeds, Harvard-Westlake (28-1) and Eastvale Roosevelt (28-2), respectively.

They are rematches of games won by Harvard-Westlake (Dec. 21, 65-50, at L.A. Cathedral High) and Roosevelt (Dec. 20, 78-74, in the semifinals of the Tarkanian Classic’s Platinum Division in the Las Vegas Orleans Hotel Arena).

Coach Reggie Morris Jr.’s Sea Hawks lost to Mira Costa on Feb. 4, 69-68, to fall into a share of the Bay League title with the Mustangs (the No. 2 seed in Division 1). And they lost at Sierra Canyon in their playoff opener Wednesday night, 69-66, in overtime.

Coach Matt Dunn’s Braves hadn’t played since their Trinity League finale at JSerra on Feb. 4, in which they rolled, 71-53, to secure their share of the title and the No. 3 overall seed.

The Braves’ four losses before Friday were by a collective margin of eight points to Roosevelt (56-55, in OT, in the Classic at Damien Platinum finale on Dec. 3), and Mater Dei (62-59) and Santa Margarita (67-66), Trinity games sandwiched around the Jan. 18, 60-57, loss to Chantilly, VA, Paul VI at the Hoophall Classic in Springfield, MA.

Friday night, the Sea Hawks took a 37-33 lead into the locker room at intermission, getting nearly half those points via four 3s by Miner (pictured) and a one apiece from S.J. Madison and reserve Devin Wright.

The Braves – despite eight turnovers – hung tight as their “Big Three” of senior Elzie Harrington (10) and juniors Christian Collins (seven) and Brandon McCoy, Jr. (five) combined for 22 points.

But the hosts got a combined 23 points from Harrington (12) and McCoy (11) in the third quarter, taking a 10-point lead before Madison’s follow shot at the buzzer got the Sea Hawks to within eight points.

Paramount to the visitors’ keeping the deficit deep into double figures was the deep shooting of Wright (who hit another 3) and another junior reserve, Zach Khatib, who drilled deep 3s in response to a 3 by Harrington and dunk by McCoy.

“His (Khatib’s) two 3s kept the game from getting away from us,” Morris said afterward. “And Devin’s 3 was big, too.”

Yet another 3, by junior guard Chace Holley (13 points), got the Sea Hawks to within 60-57 a minute into the fourth quarter.

A flash to the low post and layup by Collins (16 points), followed by a Redondo turnover and two free throws by Chris Komin 15 seconds later, padded the SJB advantage to seven points.

Senior Hudson Mayes (13 points, seven of those in the fourth quarter), Miner and Wright hit three more 3s for Redondo Union, but Collins’ seven consecutive points had his team up, 71-66, with 3:37 to go.

Layups by Holley and sophomore Chris Sanders, sandwiched around a short miss by McCoy, sliced the deficit to a point before Harrington  – who scored 22 of his game-high 24 points in a stretch of the first three quarters in which he didn’t miss a shot – dropped in a couple of free throws  with 2:33 remaining.

The Central Michigan University-bound Mayes answered with a mid-range pull up jumper 14 seconds later and Madison, after recovering the ball following a turnover by Max Ellis, beat the Braves’ Gavin Dean-Moss to the rim for a dunk with 1:30 to go and the Sea Hawks’ first lead since early in the third quarter.

The Braves went deep into their next possession, with McCoy scoring his 17^th and 18^th points on a short drive and finish at the glass with 1:08 to go, with Dunn granted a timeout by an official a second later.

Morris used the stoppage in play to call a set play for their next possession.

And the  Sea Hawks couldn’t have executed it any better.

Holley, dribbling on the left wing, passed into Mayes at the high point, who turned to set a screen, Miner curling around it from the right side with Mayes flipping him the ball as Miner set planted his feet, well beyond the NBA 3-point arc that the Drew League uses when it plays at St. John Bosco in the summer.

Swish!

The Braves lost possession just once in the final 57 seconds but got the ball back with 14.2 seconds remaining when Sanders turned the ball over.

But they couldn’t capitalize, as their Big Three missed a combined five shots from within the lane down the stretch, the last of those a 12-footer by McCoy that went off the rim as the buzzer sounded, triggering an on-court celebration by the visitors.

Miner hit two 3s against Sierra Canyon “but we needed to get him more (quality) shots tonight,” Morris said.

That approach paid off – six times.

“I wanted to focus on getting open and taking good shots,” the son of former USC All-American and NBA player Harold Miner said.

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In other upsets of note Friday night, the No. 1 (Crespi, 79-66, at Campbell Hall) and No. 7 (Inglewood, 71-69 at home, to Windward) seeds fell in Division 1.

In other gut crunchers in the division, Los Alamitos (58-56 over visiting Long Beach Poly, via a Liam Gray tip-in at the buzzer) and Rolling Hills Prep (64-62 at Corona del Mar) prevailed to set up a quarterfinal between them that is likely to be played at North Torrance High Tuesday night.

Other quarterfinals in the division Tuesday night will have Campbell Hall at Crean Lutheran (which rallied to win at The Brentwood School Friday night, 62-52); Mater Dei at Santa Barbara; and Mira Costa at home to Windward.

In the 2AA, Corona Centennial – which came into the playoffs 14-16 – won its second game in a row in impression fashion, bouncing 26-4 and host Oak Hills in Hesperia, 73-59, two days after knocking off Rancho Christian by 18 points.

The Huskies will play host to top seed Camarillo (29-2) Tuesday night.

Coach Josh Gilles’ team is joined in the quarterfinals by five other teams that played in the Classic at Damien last December: San Juan Hills and Pacifica Christian (which will play in the latter’s’ gym in Newport); Rancho Verde (which plays at  Ivy League foe Riverside Poly Tuesday); and Chino Hills and Fairmont Prep (which play in Anaheim Tuesday).

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Joining the Redondo at Roosevelt and JSerra Harvard-Westlake games in the Open Division Tuesday are Sherman Oaks Notre Dame at Santa Margarita and Sierra Canyon at St. John Bosco.

La Mirada and Heritage Christian – which dropped their first two games – drew the Tuesday byes.