A pair of staggering win streaks are on a collision course for Tuesday night’s showdown between CCS No. 1 Bellarmine and No. 2 St. Francis. The host Bells have won 22 straight WCAL games, dating back to the end of the 2016 season, while the Lancers have won 14 in a row since starting the season 0-2.
It’ll be the second straight year Bellarmine (14-2, 6-0 WCAL) enters the seventh game of WCAL play against another unbeaten team. Last year, the Bells eked out a 54-53 win over St. Ignatius to grab sole possession of first place.
Last year, the Bells swept three meetings with St. Francis, including a 74-57 win over a shorthanded Lancer team at home, their first home win over St. Francis since 2013. It marked the second consecutive year the teams played three meetings in a row, with the Lancers sweeping the series the year before, including the CCS Open Division Championship. Bellarmine won when the teams met in a 2017 Open Division Semifinal, but lost to Mitty in an overtime stunner in the championship game.
With two returning stars in Jake Wojcik and Kendall Stubblefield, the Bells picked up right where they left off last year, including a few dramatic victories. Bellarmine opened WCAL play with an overtime win over St. Ignatius and beat Riordan on Friday on Wojcik’s third-chance putback at the buzzer.
At home, the Bells have been as dominant as ever, including an 86-55 win over Sacred Heart Cathedral. A nine-point win over Serra, in which Wojcik missed the game with an ankle injury, is Bellarmine’s closest home game this season.
St. Francis (14-2, 6-0) can shoot the lights out just as well. Roy Yuan has been brilliant in his junior season, with another five 3-pointers in Friday’s win over St. Ignatius. Depth has been huge for the Lancers, with Desai Lopez scoring the go-ahead basket on Friday after not making an appearance in the last two games. Lopez provided critical minutes with Matteo Fontana out sick and Tyler Manoa playing in the Polynesian Bowl. The trio combine with rebounding machine Anthony Landphere, who had 15 rebounds on Friday and is part of a burgeoning junior class that provides the depth to complement point guard Logan Johnson’s star power.
“Logan Johnson can drive into three guys, and if he misses, there’s a good chance he can still get the rebound,” said Bellarmine head coach Patrick Schneider.
Johnson was the sixth man on an incredibly successful team that swept WCAL play and won the CCS Open Division in his sophomore year, and as a junior, he led St. Francis to the Northern California Division II Championship Game after a fourth place WCAL finish.
The two rivals share tons of parallels. Motil and Schneider have known each other for decades, and both teams have players who spent the summer in the Top Flight Elite AAU program, including on the Tyler Johnson Elite travel team, named for the St. Francis alumnus and Logan’s older brother. Wojcik and Johnson, co-WCAL MVPs as juniors, have developed a close bond as AAU teammates. Bellarmine assistant coach Alfred Duncan will be opposite his brother, James, a St. Francis alumnus and assistant.
Those parallels are also represented on the court. Both teams have juniors who have stepped up after seeing occasional time as sophomores. Yuan, Landphere and three-sport star Maurice Wilmer handle those duties for St. Francis, while Kiran Kruse has excelled as a starter for Bellarmine.
Kruse’s name should bring back memories of last year’s games between the Bells and Lancers. As a sophomore, he hit the winning free throws with 1.6 seconds left in the Bells’ overtime win at St. Francis, an especially personal moment for Kruse and the entire Bellarmine community after a fellow sophomore, Daniel Cole, passed away unexpectedly in the week leading up to the game.
“That’s one of the most special games I’ve ever been a part of,” said Schneider. “With what happened that week, it meant so much to all of us.”
As a junior, Kruse has been in double-figures almost every night, including a 12-point, 10-rebound performance in the overtime win at St. Ignatius in which he made nine of 11 at the line.
“Kiran has brought tremendous calm and composure to the lineup,” said Schneider. “This is his second year playing with the seniors, and the other juniors, like Gio Saso, have really fed off of him.”
While Bellarmine’s gym is one of the largest in the WCAL, ticket lines will be long and parking will be sparse, so fans are advised to arrive early for the 7:30 tip-off and are strongly recommended to purchase tickets online. Very few tickets will be available at the door. In past years, the Bellarmine student section has made a dramatic entrance around the fourth quarter of the JV game, an added reward for fans who show up in advance.
