ETHAN KASSEL
Prep2Prep Senior Editor

March 6, 2022

MORAGA — Entering Saturday’s CIF state Northern Regional Open Division semifinal, there was plenty of reason to doubt the Campolindo Cougars, who squeaked out tight wins in the North Coast Section playoffs and had shown no shortage of cracks on defense.

None of those doubts remained when fans exited the gym following a dominant 62-44 victory over visiting Riordan-San Francisco, leaving the Cougars a win away from becoming the first public school team to represent Northern California in an Open Division state championship, a distinction they could earn on Tuesday against third-seeded Modesto Christian.

“I knew we had another level, and there was no better time to do it than now,” head coach Steven Dyer said.

Campolindo (28-1) looked every bit the part of the top seed in all of Northern California, outsourcing the Crusaders 13-0 over the final 4:30 of the first half to take a 16-point lead and holding a double-digit advantage for the entirety of the second half.

“We came in knowing that defense would win us this game,” said Clay Naffziger, whose 3-pointer at the buzzer gave the Cougars a 34-18 halftime lead. “Our defense wasn’t exactly how we wanted it to be in NCS, so that was definitely a focal point for us.”

The week of practices between a nailbiter NCS Open Division Championship win over De La Salle and Saturday’s victory was centered around defense, and it showed as the Cougars returned to their roots with a stellar defensive performance.

“We found little wrinkles and ways to distract and disturb them,” said Saint Mary’s commit Aidan Mahaney, who scored a game-high 24 points. “Our goal was to make it as tough as possible for them, and I think we did that tonight.”

Mahaney and Cade Bennett combined to hold Crusaders star King-Njhsanni Wilhite to 13 points after the junior had torched De La Salle for 35 in Wednesday’s NorCal quarterfinal. His layup cut the Cougar lead to 21-18 with 4:38 left in the second quarter, but fifth-seeded Riordan (21-9) didn’t score again until after halftime. Matt Radell scored off a Mahaney bounce pass, a pretty passing sequence that started with Shane O’Reilly culminated in a Naffziger 3-pointer to open up a 10-point lead and Naffziger connected again at the buzzer after Cade Bennett passed out of a double team.

“Their bigs aren’t the best in on-balls and they were switching a lot of the guard matchups on on-balls, so we took those matchups 1-on-1,” Bennett said of attacking Riordan’s defense.

Bennett finished with 17 points and eight rebounds, scoring just four in the second half but accounting for eight of his team’s points in the third quarter. Mahaney had the other five, including a three-point play with 22 seconds left in the quarter to extend the lead to 47-31. The advantage was at least 15 for the entire fourth quarter and was as large as 20 in the final minute after a Justin Yasukochi layup.

Yasukochi and Radell scored six points apiece, and while neither had numbers that jumped off the page, both were instrumental in the convincing victory. Yasukochi allowed the Cougars to play small ball, while Radell created space with screens that opened up lanes for Mahaney and Bennett.

“People don’t understand how much Matt has meant to this team and to this program. He’s the all-time winning leader at Campo for a reason,” Mahaney said. “He comes in and does the dirty work, sets all the big screens. Their bigs are really good, so for Matt to take care of them was huge for us.”

Aside from an early 6-0 deficit, Campolindo was in full control. The Cougars responded with a 10-0 run and never trailed outside of the opening four minutes, taking a 16-12 lead after a quarter behind back-to-back baskets by Mahaney.

Though the Crusaders never mounted a serious charge in the second half, Saturday’s defeat marked a door closing on one of Riordan’s most successful seasons in the past two decades, a campaign that included the program’s first CCS Open Division Championship.

“The ability of this team for anyone to step up on any given night is something you don’t see at the high school level,” head coach Joey Curtin said. “They put their egos aside and played for the name on the front of their jersey.”

Achilles Woodson and Marcellus Edwards eached scored eight for the Crusaders, who played without point guard Quinton Bundage after the sophomore experienced an elevated heart rate on Friday night.

“It threw a wrench in our offense for sure,” Curtin said of Bundage’s absence. “He just gets us into our offense so well and takes the pressure off the other guys, and our whole offensive gameplan had to change.”