MORAGA, Calif. — In a game full of players with Division I scholarship offers, the best player on the floor was the one who was somehow yet to have his talent recognized by college coaches.



Emmanuel Callas continued his ascension and reaffirmed his status as one of the Bay Area’s best basketball players on Saturday night, scoring a game-high 20 points to help his Campolindo Cougars stay undefeated with a 56-47 win over the Bishop O’Dowd Dragons.



“Emmanuel’s a Division I player,” Cougars head coach Steven Dyer said. “There’s no question in my mind about that.”



With quick cuts to get around extremely athletic defenders, six rebounds, a ferocious one-handed dunk and stellar defense, Callas showed that Dyer wasn’t just trying to hype up one of his own players. He looked every bit the part of a star, a role that was made all the more vital by an early injury to junior Aidan Mahaney.



Mahaney sliced his hand open going for an alley-oop less than four minutes into the game, but Campolindo (9-0) was no worse for the wear with his absence as he left to get his hand stitched up. The combination of Callas, Cade Bennett and sophomore Shane O’Reilly was enough to compensate for the heavily recruited junior’s absence, with the trio combining for 45 points, 17 rebounds and seven assists.



The three were responsible for all but three of the Cougars’ points in a decisive 18-6 fourth quarter, The lone basket that didn’t come from the trio was a 3-pointer by Cade’s older brother, Chase, who got a fortuitous bounce off a Callas miss and fired a shot from the top of the arc that put the hosts ahead 45-42, giving them the lead for good.



Cade then assisted on O’Reilly’s third and final 3-pointer, and after Marsalis Roberson cut the lead in half with a free throw and bucket in the paint, Callas scored to make it 50-45, showing off moves that allowed him to score on the sort of bigger defenders he’d see at the college level.



“It’s something I keep in my back pocket for when I have to play against taller guys that can block shots,” Callas stated. “We might not be the tallest team, but we definitely have fast guys, hard-working guys and guys that are in the right spots at the right times. We make up for the difference in athleticism in the way we play.”



Against a roster that included Roberson, a Cal commit and prolific shot blocker, nationally acclaimed sophomore Jalen Lewis and other huge bodies including Cahal Connolly and Jarin Edwards, Callas showed he didn’t need to pick on someone his own size. He was able to constantly attack a team of top athletes, showing that even with the obstacles of a delayed season, he’s worth the attention of Division I coaches.



He scored eight of his team’s 11 in the first quarter, including a coast-to-coast drive that ended in a one-handed dunk. Bishop O’Dowd (3-3) rattled off six straight points early in the second, with Roberson delivering an impressive block at one end and finishing off an alley-oop from Taj Phillips at the other before a Lewis two-handed jam. But the Cougars responded with a 12-2 run of their own, with O’Reilly scoring 10 of his 15 in the span and Callas adding the other two.



Trailing 25-23 at the half, the Dragons took the lead to open the third quarter as Connolly, a 6-foot-7 forward with the body of an NFL player, sank a corner three, and the visitors took their largest lead at 37-31 after a Lewis dunk, Edwards putback and Phillips 3-pointer. The Cougars were quick to answer, with Davidson football commit Maxwell Weaver scoring all four of his points in rapid succession and O’Reilly scoring off a steal and layup before O’Dowd took a 41-38 lead into the fourth on a pair of Matt Desler free throws at the buzzer.



Campo led for almost the entirety of the fourth quarter, going up 42-41 on a pair of Cade Bennett free throws and a Callas floater in the lane. Edwards made one of two free throws to even the score with 5:52 remaining, but Chase Bennett’s 3-pointer kicked off a 14-5 run to close the game, with Dragons head coach Lou Richie emptying his bench in the final minute rather than chasing fouls.



“The ball went from our hands to theirs. Big-time players make big-time plays, and they did that the whole game," Richie said. “Our better players made turnovers. We couldn’t get good possessions and we couldn’t get stop after stop.”



It was a victory that put the Cougars on the same footing as Central Coast Section power Mitty, and it was one that Campolindo had been chasing for a long time.



“We have a ton of respect for them,” Dyer said. “They’re the team that everyone looks up to in our area. It’s as impressive a win as we’ve had over the last five years, and we’ve had some good ones.”



The younger Bennett had 10 points, six rebounds and five assists while combining with his brother to draw a pair of key offensive fouls.



“I could coach here for 30 years and I don’t know if I’ll ever have guys who know the game as well as they do,” Dyer said of the pair, sons of Saint Mary’s head coach Randy Bennett.



The Cougars will have another huge game on Tuesday when they visit De La Salle (5-2) for a rematch of the 2020 Northern California Division I Championship, a game the Cougars won 54-49. The Dragons are set to host San Leandro in a league matchup on Wednesday.