SAN FRANCISCO — Less than 24 hours after West Catholic Athletic League play tipped off, the league saw its first major stunner of the 2020 campaign.
Dimitri Koutsogeorgas’ free throw with 33.7 seconds left gave the Serra Padres the edge for good as they shocked second-ranked Riordan, one of the favorites to win the league, at the Crusader Forum, 50-48.
“Nobody believes in us besides our 18 (players),” said senior guard Ryan Wilson, who scored nine of his 11 points in the first half. “It takes all five of us (on the floor) at a time to play defense. Our help defense is there all the time and we just had to stand up and stop them with our bodies.”
The fifth-ranked Padres did manage to stop the Crusaders with their bodies as Antonio Abeyta drew a charge on Bryce Monroe with 50.3 seconds left, one of two calls that the home crowd took offense to in the final minutes. After trailing by as much as 11 in the third quarter, Riordan (9-2, 0-1) tied the game on a drive by Monroe and went in front for the first time since the opening four minutes of the game on a Mor Seck dunk with 2:55 left, but the energized 7-foot-1 sophomore was called for a technical foul for hanging on the rim.
“I think it didn’t deserve a technical,” head coach Joey Curtin said of the call. “It wasn’t egregious, he didn’t taunt or do anything like that.”
Abeyta made both free throws to tie the game back up and Wilson followed with a baseline floater to put Serra (9-2, 1-0) back on top.
“It gave us a little momentum and it stopped their run,” Serra interim head coach Brian Carson said of the call on Seck. “Those two points were big, and it gave us a little confidence on the offensive end.”
Wilson’s field goal was just the second Serra made in the fourth quarter, with the other coming from Jevon Jesus after the Crusaders had gotten the first five points of the period, including two on a Monroe-to-Seck alley-oop. The Padres led by four at halftime and opened that advantage to 38-27 in the third on a Julius Alcantara putback, then got a 3-pointer from sophomore Brady Smith to answer two straight big plays from Nevada commit Je’Lani Clark, a 3-pointer from NBA range and a transition dunk.
Clark, who sat the first quarter for disciplinary reasons, scored 16 for Riordan while shooting 6-for-9 from the field. He made four 3-pointers, and his lone miss from beyond the arc was on a 60-foot heave at the buzzer. As well as he shot, though, the Crusaders rode into the final minutes with their other Division I-bound guard, the Sam Houston State-bound Monroe.
With Clark on the bench in the first quarter, Monroe came out swinging, scoring his team’s first six points and eight of 14 in the period, but Serra’s defense held him to just 6-of-19 shooting on the night.
“He wants to get downhill and get to the rim,” Carson said of defending Monroe. “Normally we play denial defense and tonight we changed it into a gap defense, kind of a pack line defense. The pack line was there and guys were stepping up and stopping the ball.”
Forced to the outside by constant double-teams, Monroe shot just 1-of-7 from 3-point range, though that did include a pair of misses that rimmed out after going halfway down. His lone make closed the third quarter with Riordan down 41-35, and the momentum continued into the fourth as he got the quarter’s first basket, then hit Seck for an emphatic alley-oop that drew the largest cheers from the estimated 1,500 in attendance but didn’t seem to rattle the Padres..
“It’s a game of runs,” Abeyta said. “They went on their run, we went on ours.”
With the lead again after Wilson’s lone basket of the second half, Serra would surrender just one more field goal on the night. Alcantara swatted a Monroe shot all the way to Twin Peaks, but an inbound pass from Lee Hubbard III to Clark drew the hosts even again with 2:24 to go. The Padres would miss their next two looks, with Abeyta rebounding his own miss from near the free throw line, but Riordan would come up empty in the final minutes as well. With ample time left on the shot clock, Monroe tried a deep three that missed but ultimately went out of bounds off Wilson. That gave the Crusaders another chance to take back the lead, but Abeyta drew the pivotal charge as Monroe drove into traffic once again.
“I thought he was still sliding out of legal guarding position, but that’s a play where I think we have to make a pass,” Curtin said.
After Koutsogeorgas split a pair of free throws, the Padres had a foul to give and did so with 13.5 left, with the ball decidedly in Monroe’s hands despite Clark finding himself with space. Monroe drove into the lane one last time off the ensuing inbound but missed, and the loose ball went all the way to the other end of the floor before the Crusaders could finally foul Alcantara with 2.1 seconds left. He made his first free throw, and after missing the second, all Clark could do was heave up one last shot that came about five feet short.
Without Clark on the floor to start the game, the Crusaders trailed 15-8 before getting the final six points of the second. Clark announced his return by hitting a pair of threes midway through the second quarter, but five of Smith’s eight helped keep Serra in front. The lead was 26-22 at half, and the visitors got the first six points of the third as Koutsogeorgas set up Alcantara off an offensive rebound, then scored again to put the Padres up double-digits.
“We came out so lackadaisical and took them lightly,” Clark said. “You take team like that lightly, they’re gonna get you. Giving up 15 offensive rebounds is unacceptable for a team of our size, but it’s good. We’ll get it back.”
Of the 15 offensive rebounds, five went to Alcantara, who had nine in all while matching Wilson with 11 points. Koutsogeorgas finished with nine, including the go-ahead free throw, while Monroe scored 17. Clark had 16 and Seck finished with nine, but he was held to just five rebounds.
“We just couldn’t get over the hump this time,” Monroe said. “We didn’t stick together this time, and that’s on me. We just got stagnant on offense.”
The attitude from the hosts was a somber yet optimistic one, as Monroe added, “We’re just playing for the next game and we’re not letting this derail us from our bigger goals.”
That next game will be on Tuesday when the Crusaders travel to Sacred Heart Cathedral (5-5, 1-0). Serra will host St. Ignatius (5-6, 0-1) on Tuesday in the Jungle Game.
No. 1 Mitty 63, No. 11 St. Francis 43
The Monarchs led wire-to-wire, holding an early 8-0 lead and going into the half with a 33-18 lead after a Nigel Burris alley-oop. Burris scored 20 off the bench to lead all scorers as Mitty (10-1, 1-0) led by 24 after three quarters and stretched the lead all the way to 60-31 in the fourth before the Lancers made the final score closer than the game suggested. Sophomores combined for 30 of 43 points for St. Francis (7-3, 0-1), with John Frazier scoring 10 in the second half and Isaiah Kerr finishing with nine. Harlan Banks scored six in his first game eligible after transferring from Sacred Heart Prep, while Pepperdine commit Mikey Mitchell scored 14 for the Monarchs, draining four 3-pointers.
No. 3 Bellarmine 78, No. 15 Valley Christian 38
The Bells raced out to an early 24-8 lead and never looked back, getting a game-high 18 points from Quinn Denker, who sat the fourth quarter with the outcome well in hand. Ten different players scored in all for Bellarmine (11-0, 1-0), with Cole Despie scoring eight of his 10 in the fourth quarter as the game finished with a running clock. Ridley Ruth scored six in the first quarter and also finished with 10 while Ryan Kiachian scored 12, even hitting a 3-pointer in the second quarter. Valley Christian (8-3, 0-1) played a sixth straight game without Jurrion Dickey, but he played with the freshman A team as a sort of rehab assignment. Pawllos Habtom scored 12 to lead the Warriors and Kainoa Mayo added eight.
