What’s up, Scotts? A Sunset League victory for CDM at Los Alamitos

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LOS ALAMITOS –  Corona del Mar High’s Maxwell Scott educated the uninitiated Monday night in Los Alamitos High’s new gymnasium during the Sea Kings’ Sunset League victory over the host Griffins:

His status as one of the better junior jump shooters extends well beyond just Orange County.

But, despite a 35-point performance fueled by seven 3-pointers, it was left to a kid who scored only four points to provide the decisive bucket in the 78-77 victory – Scott’s sophomore brother, Nolan.

The younger Johnson’s layup – completed after a diagonal pass from Luke Mirhashemi, with nary a defender as close as two strides behind after he had dove to the basket after setting a screen for Oliver Nakra, another elite jump shooter – put the Sea Kings up with 4.3 seconds to go.

After consecutive timeouts – one by Griffins’ Coach Nate Berger to set up a potential game-winning shot attempt and then another by CDM’s Jason Simco after he got a look at how the Los Alamitos players positioned themselves on the court – were followed by Tyler Lopez’s inbound pass to sophomore Riley Bowers.

After a couple of dribbles, Bowers launched from near the far side of the mid-court strip with the ball falling well off the mark as the buzzer sounded.

That buzzer set off a spontaneous celebration, with the Sea Kings (No. 13 in the latest BurlisonOnBasketball SoCal Top 30, 17-11 overall and 2-0 in league) taking an early but firm lead for a potential league title.

Round II for Orange County’s top public-school teams comes Jan. 21, on CDM’s Newport Beach campus gym.

The ties between Simco and Berger are pronounced beyond just being two of the better coaches in all Southern California.

Both played at high schools in Orange County, Simco, at Estancia, where he became his alma mater’s head coach at 22 in 2005; Berger, a standout for and 2009 graduate of  Los Alamitos.

Each is in his fifth season as their program’s head coach, with Berger picking up win No. 100 with the Griffins in last week’s Classic at Damien Diamond Division semifinal win over Central of Phoenix, the night before they beat Auburn of Washington in the title game.

And Simco hit the 100-win mark recently, too, with the Sea Kings.

How recently?

As recently as Monday night, when that final buzzer sounded.

It was also the first win for the Simco-coached Sea Kings over the Griffins.

Could this be the season that Simco and his Sea Kings win a CIF Southern Section title, as Berger and his Griffins did last spring in the Division 1 bracket?

All the elements – especially in shooting, offensive execution and coaching – are in place for them to be strong contenders do so.

Of course, that will depend largely on which teams get pulled into the Southern Section’s Open Division – which will always be the case under the current playoff format.

Maxwell Scott (pictured), Nakra (who hit three 3s as part of his 19 points Monday night) and Mirhashemi (12 points and five assists, including the biggest one of the night) were standouts that stunned Baseline League champion Rancho Cucamonga on the road in the first round of the D-1 playoffs last season, before dropping a two-point decision at home to Rolling Hills Prep.

The year before that, the same trio was on the floor – with Scott scoring 33 points – when the Sea Kings fell at Long Beach Poly, 57-54, in a 2A semifinal.

But even in the emotionally crushing loss, the Griffins demonstrated that they are more than capable of defending their league title and making another deep Division 1 playoff run.

The Griffins – minus seven of their top nine players from last season – opened 1-5 while navigating one of the most challenging non-league schedules in the state.

But, since a 38-point loss at St. John Bosco on Dec. 5, they were 7-1 with the loss coming against No. 9 Crean Lutheran (72-69) on Dec. 23 at Tesoro.

They led the bulk of the 32 minutes Monday night, despite the deep shooting panache – 12 3s – of the Sea Kings.

You might be able to count Maxwell Scott’s Monday-misses-when-open on three fingers and I’m not sure any of his eight free throws grazed iron before falling out of the net.

Lopez – the Most Outstanding Player in the Classic at Damien Diamond Division – scored 17 points with seven rebounds Monday night, while fellow seniors Sean Lee and Joe Ojeda went for 11 and seven, respectively.

But it’s the continued improvement and productivity of the two sophomores in Berger’s starting lineup that provide the sense that the Griffins aren’t close to reaching their “ceiling” for this season yet.

Six-foot-four Isaiah Williamson (who hit about a half-dozen “big shots” in the late going of the games at Damien) scored 26 points Monday night, on 11 of 15 from the field and two of four from the free-throw line, with six rebounds and four assists

And 6-1 Bowers scored 12 points, half of those on a couple of well-beyond-the-arc 3s down the stretch of the fourth quarter.