SAN JOSE - Bellarmine is from the West Catholic Athletic League, where playing a zone defense is almost a mortal sin. The Bells see a zone in league about as often as Charlie Sheen spends a quiet night at home.
The Bells are into the CCS Division I playoffs now, though, and Milpitas had its zone ready against the Catholic school in this section quarterfinal game at Piedmont Hills. Bellarmine responded with a deadly long-range assault, defeating the Trojans 52-40. Up next for the Bells is No. 1 seed San Benito at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Independence High.
"They really stuck with zone, even when they fell behind," Bells coach Patrick Schneider said. "It's not something in our league that we see a lot of. I was really glad with the work we put in at practice to clean up our zone execution."
One of the Bells who shined against the zone was Kyle Ownes, who led Bellarmine with 11 points. He led the Bells with three 3-pointers, to go along with two by both Masa Swain and Max Le and one by Dylan Tarpening.
"I wanted to knock down some threes for my teammates," Owens said. "I got the ball in the corner and got some open shots. We barely saw any zone in league but I like playing against it because there's a lot of open pockets on the side."
The Bells led 14-7 after one quarter and 30-18 at halftime. The Trojans played Bellarmine even after that, but never got closer than 10 points behind.
"They shot the ball well from outside," Milpitas coach Champ Wrencher said. "That was part of our game plan, to control the boards and make them shoot jump shots. But they had a few kids who knocked down at least two 3's and that gave them some cushion. At the same time, we couldn't score. Christian Rita couldn't get it going and everybody kind of feeds off him."
Rita, a junior guard, finished with a game-high 18 points, but couldn't find the range often enough when it mattered. He was hindered by a deep thigh bruise and his teammate Matt Ferguson (tweaked ankle) also suited up despite his injury and scored nine points.
However, Bellarmine (9-16) was just too accurate from the field and efficient overall. Swain backed Owens with 10 points and Tarpening had seven.
Despite just a 2-12 record in the meat-grinder WCAL, the Bells are the No. 4 seed in D-I and seem to have a good chance to win it all.
"We're all pretty pumped about it," Owens said of the playoffs. "We just take each game one at a time and see what happens. League was pretty tough, but it's kind of like a new beginning for us and we're doing pretty good right now."
As for Milpitas, its season is finished. The Trojans can look back fondly on a season in which it went 16-10, nearly won the SCVAL-De Anza and boasted three underclassmen as its leading scorers.
"Considering all of the injuries and things we had going on this year, I thought we did pretty good," Wrencher said. "We were a game away from winning league."
In the other D-1 quarterfinals, Menlo-Atherton defeated Palo Alto 51-43, Homestead downed No. 2 seed Piedmont Hills 57-48 and San Benito routed Fremont 51-35.
Homestead and M-A will meet at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in the other semifinal.
