After a challenging and emotional victory over Bellarmine by two points on Wednesday night, Mitty came out operating smoothly in a 71-43 rout of St. Ignatius.
Aaron Gordon, the No. 7 recruit in the ESPN 100 for the class of 2013, had 14 points along with tenacious defense that kept St. Ignatius on their heels the entire night.
When asked about his reaction to the blowout victory, Gordon responded, “I think it was a very well-put together game. We haven’t really had a game all year where we played all four quarters. After that Bellarmine game, we told ourselves it isn’t going to be easy. We just came out here like we were going to play our best basketball today.”
Gordon finished off his night with a ferocious one-handed dunk midway through the third quarter that got the crowd into a frenzy.
Mitty went on a 17-0 run at the outset before SI made a pair of free throws nearly seven minutes into the game. During this run, the Wildcats turned the ball over multiple times with Monarchs’ Brandon Farrell leading all scorers with 11 points in the first quarter.
Gordon was double-teamed by the Wildcats throughout the game, but Farrell, who has been dealing with an ankle injury, answered the call with a game-high 20 points.
Farrell thinks the trip to Texas to face the No. 3 and No. 5 ESPN 100 recruits -- the Kentucky committed Harrison twins, along with games in San Diego and Oregon -- really helped with his team’s confidence.
“It really gets us ready for all of the competition. We come here and it’s a lot easier if we played against top competition. It gets us ready for the championships in March.”
St. Ignatius eventually found their legs with Albert Waters driving to the hoop numerous times for seven points in the second quarter.
At halftime, the Monarchs led 40-19.
St. Ignatius’ star point guard Trevor Dunbar had six points in the third quarter, but this did little to stop the Mitty attack. Gordon hit a deep three-pointer along with a breakaway throw-down slam to put the game away for good.
The Wildcats desperately tried to get back into the game in the third and fourth quarters, but Mitty’s offensive inside game with stifling defense was too much for St. Ignatius.
Gordon and Farrell both agree that the Monarchs are going to continue to work on defense for upcoming games.
“It’s all defense," Farrell said. "Everything starts on defense. We get that stop, that’s when the offense comes off of that. We just want to work on getting stops constantly and we go back and just keep on scoring.”
Archbishop Mitty (8-3, 2-0 WCAL) travels to Mountain View to square off against St. Francis on Tuesday night. St. Ignatius (10-2, 1-1 WCAL) faces visiting Sacred Heart Cathedral on Tuesday night.
