Both of the underdogs in Wednesday night’s CCS Open Division Semifinals will be hoping for far better showings than the last time they squared off with their opponents.
If not, they could be in for a long night.
Seventh-seeded St. Francis shot 3-for-23 on 3-pointers in a 56-33 loss to third-seeded Bellarmine just eight days ago, and when the fourth-seeded Menlo-Atherton Bears faced top-seeded Mitty back on Dec. 20, they lost 85-49, setting a record for points allowed in a single game in the Mike Molieri era.
That doesn’t mean they’ll be playing stinkers on Wednesday, though.
The Lancers had beaten Bellarmine 46-43 when the teams first squared off back on Jan. 7, and the Open Division semifinals just have a habit of being close, whether they should be or not. Only three of the 14 semifinal games played over the tournament’s prior seven years were decided by double-digits. In both 2017 and 2018, the Bells topped St. Francis in the semis, winning the two games by a combined eight points.
Having such a rivalry at neutral-site Independence High, which has hosted the semifinals every year, should spruce up what’s often been a dreary atmosphere for such high-profile games. The site of the section’s largest gym, Independence has often been lamented as an unnecessarily large venue in an inconvenient location, but the school has always been willing to open its doors to the section, something many of the other suitable venues neglect to do.
One thing that’s been consistent at the semifinals is the WCAL’s dominance. No team from outside the league has ever won a semifinal game, though there have been just three games over the past seven years that weren’t between two teams from the league. Having lost to eventual champion Sacred Heart Cathedral last year, M-A will be back again on Wednesday, looking to make history in the 7:30 contest.
“We’ll see how much of an improvement we have and bridge that gap,” Molieri said of the improvements needed from his squad. “Mitty’s an tremendous team.”
While the prior meeting with the Monarchs this season was an unmitigated disaster, the Bears have taken aim at Mitty before and come awfully close, losing by a single point on a questionable foul call when the teams met in 2018. Still, it’s a difficult matchup for M-A, trying to deal with a team that excels at spacing the floor and creating open looks. Mitty is one of the few teams that can outrun the Bears and create enough space to get clean shots, meaning the underdogs will need to shoot far better than they did on Friday, when they hit just four of 17 3-point attempts against Serra.
Similarly, the Lancers will need to shoot better than their prior meeting with Bellarmine in the 6 p.m. game. They were stronger from outside on Friday, hitting seven of 18 3-pointers to knock off Riordan, but that was largely fueled by Vince Barringer’s 5-of-8 performance. With the Bells’ ability to keep teams out of the lane, St. Francis will surely need to connect from the outside in order to upset Bellarmine for a second time this year.
One way the Lancers could get going on offense is by getting into transition, something the Bells excel at limiting. While the Bellarmine defense can make teams feel like they’re running into a brick wall, Trevor Leon’s ability to create turnovers and the combined drives to the basket from Harlan Banks and Isaiah Kerr give St. Francis the necessary pieces to run. Such speed will be needed to avoid a prolonged scoring drought, something nearly every team has dealt with against the Bells. In Bellarmine’s last four games, every opponent other than the Lancers has had at least one quarter in which they scored less than five points. St. Francis barely avoided that distinction last Tuesday with five in the fourth quarter.
Even if St. Francis does click on offense, Bellarmine has the horses to respond. Anthony Piro hit five threes in Friday’s win over Sacred Heart Prep, Cole Despie and Jackson Dupree have both had double-digit games off the bench and, of course, there’s always Quinn Denker. Nonetheless, the Bells will likely seek a slower pace, and if St. Francis can speed things up, they’ll need to adapt quickly to prevent a big run.
Not only will the Bells be heavy favorites, they’ve got history on their side. They’re 4-0 in semifinal games, including an overtime win over Riordan last year despite getting swept in the season series and missing multiple key players to injury, including then-sophomore Ryan Kiachian. Now a 6-foot-9 junior, Kiachian has combined with Ian Elam to destroy opponents in the paint, and when the teams met last Tuesday, the two outscored St. Francis’ entire roster. Combine that with Constantijn Cole’s return to health and Zach Turner’s emergence, and the Bells have become a truly unstoppable force on the glass.
As hard as it would be to stop the Bellarmine bigs under normal circumstances, things will be even harder for the Lancers on Wednesday after they lost Ryan Daly to a dislocated shoulder during the fourth quarter of their win over Riordan. Though it would be fair to assume the ever-tenacious Daly will return to the court at some point before the end of his career, he won’t be playing on Wednesday. John Frazier will likely start in his place, meaning St. Francis would have three sophomores starting. John Mansur could also be called upon from the bench, and Kyle Rosecrans, a 6-2 senior, may be asked to moonlight in the post as well.
Daly’s injury makes an already difficult road even tougher for St. Francis, but that’s just the sort of thing this team has thrived on.
“We’ve got nothing to lose out here, so we’re just going hard every time,” Kerr said after beating Riordan.
M-A may need to adopt a similar underdog mentality, though it would be a strange role for a team that’s won 18 straight. Fearless play was a theme in Friday’s win over Serra, particularly from Skyler Thomas, who scored a career-high 19 points. A 6-3 post, the junior played his strongest game against the Padres, and it’ll be interesting to see how Tim Kennedy deploys his roster to combat him. Mitty’s entire starting five stands at 6-3, while 6-7 Nigel Burris and 6-9 Arrish Bhandal both come off the bench. Though Thomas plays bigger than his size, the Monarchs could go in a variety of different directions to try to slow him down and force the Bears to the perimeter, where they’ll need to hit more than just a couple of clutch shots. JD Carson and Nick Tripaldi delivered them on Friday, but until the two came to life, M-A had hit just one 3-pointer.
“We’re going to need to play like we did at the end of that game for all four quarters,” Carson said.
Are the odds on the side of either of the underdogs? No. Could it be done? Absolutely. A lower-seeded team has won one of the semifinal games in four of the prior seven years, with both lower seeds winning last year as SHC topped M-A and Bellarmine stunned Riordan. Last year was the first time the top seed didn’t advance to the championship game as Mitty bowed out to the Irish in the first round. The Monarchs already cleared the hurdle in the first round by beating Menlo, but Wednesday will provide a new challenge in the latest chapter of the Open Division’s history, a story that’s yet to leave audiences underwhelmed.
