SANTA ANA – My, oh, my . . . what a Wednesday night for Trinity League boys’ basketball.
Roughly 20 minutes after the Santa Margarita High Eagles rallied from 15 points down in the fourth quarter to knock off Mater Dei on its home court for the first time ever, 74-73, host Orange Lutheran pulled off an even bigger stunner.
The Lancers built a nine-point edge in the final minute before holding off league-leading St. John Bosco – the No. 3 team in the CIF Southern Section – 72-68.
It was the first win for an Orange Lutheran varsity team over a Braves’ squad in eight seasons, pulling the Braves into a tie for first with the Eagles with just a Friday round of games to go before the league’s first-ever tournament tips off Monday at Irvine Valley College.
And, in the same Wednesday timeframe in Anaheim, visiting JSerra rolled to a surprisingly one-sided victory over host Servite, 89-47.
In Friday’s games, Santa Margarita (23-3 overall and 3-1 in league; No. 4 in this week’s CIF Southern Section computer ratings behind Sierra Canyon, Redondo Union and SJB) is at home to Orange Lutheran (18-7 and 2-2); JSerra (16-11 and 2-2) will attempt to knock off host Mater Dei (16-11 and 2-2) for the fifth time in a row over three seasons; and Servite (18-9 and 0-4) visits Bellflower to take on the Braves (18-6 and 3-1).
The top two seeds in the six-team league will get byes Monday night at IVC, with No.’s 6 and 3, and 4 and 5, playing in the quarterfinals.
The semifinals will move to Fullerton and Hope International Tuesday, with the championship and third-place games – to designate the league’s three automatic qualifiers to the CIF SS playoffs – remaining there Wednesday night.
Servite is set for the No. 6 seed while the other five slots will be dictated by Friday’s results.
Holding a 15-point advantage by way of an offense clicking on a lot of fronts, the Mater Dei Monarchs were only 5 and a half minutes away from its most significant win of the season Wednesday night.
To recount those final 300-plus seconds as concisely as possible:
The Eagles scored 15 points in a row before Trey Price put Mater Dei back on top with 3-pointer from well beyond the top of the key with 1:42 remaining.
And Santa Margarita guard Kaiden Bailey answered with a layup 15 seconds later and another, after picking off a pass, with 16 seconds to go.
Yet, that sizzling 17-3 burst came oh-so-close to not being enough, as Kansas-bound Luke Barnett – one of the best jump shooters anywhere on the high school landscape, with the most 3-pointers in Mater Dei history – got a clean look at a 3 from the left with about 10 seconds to go.
That was long off the iron but rebounded by Price, who fired the ball back into Barnett’s hands.
The rapid-fire release was clean but the ball again off the iron, two seconds before time expired and Santa Margarita players, coaches, family began celebrating what seemed so unlikely just minutes before.
Santa Margarita opened the doors to its classrooms – basketball program – in the fall of 1987.
That’s a lot of pent-up hoops alumni frustration that was snapped Wednesday night.
“Yeah, I knew about it (the program’s winless record at Mater Dei) – the economics teacher brought it up in class today,” senior forward Drew Anderson said, after doing the school’s hoops ancestors proud with 22 points and nine rebounds.
Another senior forward, Brayden Kyman, hit six 3s for the Eagles – five in the first half and the sixth in that 15-0 sprint.
And he and his parents, Coley and Michelle, knew about that the “streak” well before Brayden (pictured) spent the past three seasons leaving Mater Dei’s Meruelo Athletic Center in a major funk after Ls to the Monarchs:
Brother Jake Kyman graduated from Santa Margarita in 2019 after being Orange County Playter of the Year – and going winless against the Monarchs.
“This is a competitive group,” Coach Justin Bell said of his Eagles, all seven of those who played Wednesday night being seniors.
“They’ve been coming through all season. I told them (as the deficit grew), “just compete as hard as possible, and things will fall into place.”
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