ETHAN KASSEL
Prep2Prep Senior Editor

March 12, 2022

SACRAMENTO — A journey that started in a tiny gym at the bottom of three flights of stairs ended on an NBA court, celebrating a state championship for the first time in school history as Stuart Hall defeated Chaffey 56-45 to win the CIF Division V crown.

“I always felt that if we could get everyone back from school trips and COVID at the end of the season, we could lock in,” Stuart Hall head coach Charley Johnson said. “I think everybody thought this was a possibility. I know I did.”

The 2021-22 Knights may not have been the most talented team in the program’s 22-year history, but they found a recipe for success and gelled at the right time to make history for a program that’s competed at a high level for years and finally broke through the glass ceiling on Friday afternoon at Golden 1 Center.

The same combination that had worked for the Knights throughout their postseason run came together again on Friday against the Tigers, with Jackson Jung and Brandon Lum combining for 42 points and eight 3-pointers.

“Throughout the season, we’ve benefitted from teams that have zoned us,” Lum said. “On this state run, most teams have been playing man, and zone allows us to find openings.”

The tandem combined for 15 of 19 points in a second quarter where Stuart Hall (22-12), a notoriously slow-starting team that usually turns it on in the second half, opened up a double-digit lead that never shrank to less than nine over the final two quarters. Lum hit back-to-back threes, including a four-point play that gave the NorCal reps a 20-10 lead, and a Sterling Luddington-Simmons offensive rebound set Jung up for a 3-pointer after Dejon Clark had made a pair of free throws for Chaffey (24-13).

Backup center Jake Goodman snuck a pass to Lum for a layup, Jung hit another 3-pointer and Luddington-Simmons went coast-to-coast after one of his nine rebounds to stretch the advantage to 16 before the Tigers got the final two points of the half to go into the break trailing 30-16.

That second-quarter surge propelled the Knights through a pair of droughts in the final two quarters. Clark got the first four points of the second half for the Tigers before Johnson called a timeout, but Jung followed the stoppage up with his fourth 3-pointer. Luddington-Simmons, who had five points and five steals, scored on a putback to give Stuart Hall a 15-point advantage, and the last of Jung’s 3-pointers made it 40-24.

“Before this season, I texted Coach and told him, ‘I’m super pumped for this season. I’m thinking state.’” Luddington-Simmons said. “I sent him that text last night to remind him, hey, throwback.”

The margin was 18 after three quarters and got as large as 19 in the fourth before the Tigers made one last push, a 10-0 run to cut it to 47-38 on a Jonathan Jackson layup with 4:02 left. Sophomore Tim Rayford grabbed an offensive rebound and found Lum for a layup and Jung hit a pair of free throws to restore a 14-point advantage and start the celebrations for the Knights, who had reached the state title game once before under Johnson, the lone coach in program history.

“It’s way bigger than the team,” said Johnson, whose team represented Northern California in Division IV in 2018. “This is about our administrators, our faculty, our fans, our bus drivers, our security people, our people who clean up our gym. As a group, we have a perspective of that.”

Tyler Terry led a balanced attack for Chaffey with 13 points. Jackson scored nine, Adrian Gutierrez had eight points and Clark finished with seven. Both Clark and Gutierrez pulled down eight rebounds. Lum scored 22 while Jung, who had prior experience in big games as a sophomore when he led the Knights to a league tournament championship as a JV callup after four starters were suspended, went 5-for-10 from 3-point range and scored 20.

“Before the game, I told all the boys, ‘you know I love you, right?’” Johnson said. “But I think I’ll love you a little bit more if we win.”