AZUSA – How do you win a basketball championship game while shooting just 30 percent from the field, including 22 percent from beyond the 3-point arc?
With grind-you -own defense, baby – and some well-beyond “determined” offensive rebounding generously sprinkled into the mix.
The Colony High Titans of Ontario used a 22-5 run over a nine-minute stretch of the first and second quarters and never allowed the Trabuco Hills Mustangs of Mission Viejo to get closer than five points (with 4.7 seconds to go) after intermission to prevail in the boys CIF Southern Section Division 4 finale, 51-44, Friday night at Azusa Pacific University.
In another boys CIF SS final play earlier at APU, the Gardena Serra program won its first championship in 10 years, knocking off Pilobos in overtime, 57-51, for the Division 5 title.
Eight other CIF SS boys’ championship games are scheduled for Saturday, three at APU and five at Toyota Arena in Ontario – including the Division 1 (Crean Lutheran vs. JSerra) and Open (Sierra Canyon vs. Harvard-Westlake) headliners at 4 and 6 p.m., respectively.
The Titans (20-13 and 16-13 since Christmas) is now 4-for-4 in section championship games – the first three of those, in 2006, ’17 and ’19, under Jerry DeFabiis, now an assistant commissioner of the CIF SS, in charge of hoops.
Their coach Friday was Tony Davis – who wasn’t hired until mid-October after leaving Servite after last season.
Davis came to the Titans with a championship pedigree, coaching Lakewood’s Mayfair to CIF SS titles in 2012 and ’19.
He also play in a section title game in 1999 for his alma mater, Cerritos Gahr, when the Gladiators lost to Compton Dominguez, which was led by two future NBA players, center Tyson Chandler and forward Bobby Jones.
“After I got the job and had a chance to work with the guys for a while, I knew defense was going to have to be this team’s ‘identity’,” said Davis (pictured).
And, once the group bought in and embraced that Davis-anointed persona, the Titans – who missed the playoffs the past three years – allowed more than 60 points just once, in a 73-72 OT loss at Los Altos on Jan. 8.
Senior forward Fende Thomas (at 6-foot-3, the tallest, and bounciest, starter in the game) paced the Titans with game highs of 13 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists.
But it was their collective defense – and 18 offensive rebounds, leading to a large percentage of their 20 field goals – which resulted in the Mustangs (also 20-13) missing 17 of 18 shots from behind the arc, shooting .354 overall and scoring 30 points less than their average for their first four playoff games.
Trabuco Hills was in its first section championship game in 34 years, when the Mustangs knocked off La Palma Kennedy, 68-60, in the since demolished (10 years ago) L.A. Sports Arena.
Like every other Southern Section team eligible to move on, the Colony and Trabuco Hills players and coaches will learn their State Southern Regional opponents for next week (Divisions 1-5 begin Tuesday, and Open on Wednesday) when the CIF State Office in Sacramento releases the brackets Sunday afternoon.
Senior forward Chinemerem Anyikwa never left the floor for the Serra Cavaliers (20-13), turning in a dominant 36-minute performance with 25 points (including four 3s), 15 rebounds, six blocked shots and two steals.
The Cavaliers – under second-year Head Coach De’Jon Frazier – finished third in the Camino Real League (behind Bishop Montgomery and Bishop Amat) for its final automatic bid to the playoffs, winning each of their first four games by at least nine points.
The last time the program won a title (also at APU, vs. Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks) was under the late Dwan Hurt, a Serra and Gonzaga graduate who passed away in his sleep at 53 just about 10 eight months after the champion game.
The floor in Serra’s gymnasium is named in his honor.
Pilibos (17-16) trailed by seven points with three and a half minutes to go in regulation, scoring the final point on a free throw by Alex Andriassian with 44.3 seconds to go.
Each team had a chance to win in the closing seconds of the fourth quarter, Pilibos missing a couple of free throws and Serra failing to convert a reasonable attempt at a layup just before the buzzer.
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