SAN FRANCISCO — With 20 seconds left in their CCS Open Division semifinal and a seven-point lead, the Riordan boys basketball team looked to be on the way to its first Open Division championship game in program history.
They made it there, but only after embarking on a twisted and convoluted path that nobody could have ever seen coming.
St. Ignatius (12-7) mounted a furious comeback in the final seconds, taking the lead and appearing to win the game on Rory Kenneally’s bank 3-pointer, but after the referees conferred and put 1.1 seconds back on the clock, seven-footer Mor Seck got tangled up with his defender and drew a foul call on the ensuing inbound pass.
The junior knocked down both free throws, capping off a 10-for-10 effort at the line, finishing off his game-high 24-point performance and sending the second-seeded Crusaders through to the championship game in the section’s top division for the first time with a 66-65 victory that will go down as one of the most remarkable games ever played between the two schools.
“I live in the boarding school, so I come to the gym every time and shoot free throws by myself,” said Seck, who made just 22 of 61 attempts from the line as a sophomore but couldn’t miss from the charity stripe on Wednesday. “In my mind, I knew the ref was right behind me and he was gonna call the foul.”
The foul itself was a source of controversy and frustration for the visiting Wildcats, as was the decision by the officials to put time back on the clock in the first place. Facing a two-point deficit with 5.5 seconds left and missing two starters with Ryan Conroy injuring his ankle and Sean Quanico having fouled out, Adrian Di Lena leapt to steal the inbound pass at half-court and redirected it to GC Toledo Rivera. Rivera passed to Kenneally, who banked in the shot from the wing to set off a wild celebration as the SI bench poured onto the court, thinking the game was over.
“I don’t know what to say. The refs took that game from us,” SI head coach Jason Greenfield said. “The refs decided to put 1.1 back on the clock even though the buzzer went off and then they ran the Georgetown play. You run baseline, you grab a guy around the waist and you throw him into you. It’s a smart play if you can goad the ref into it, and he took it.”
Even after the free throws, St. Ignatius got off one last shot to win the game after a full-court inbound pass, but the desperation look came up short and it was the Crusaders’ turn to celebrate, with the entire team following a sprinting Seck into the locker room.
“We were trying to get a foul or a catch and turnaround,” Riordan head coach Joey Curtin said of the final play. “Luckily, Mor came through in the final second and made some big free throws.”
Seck went 8-for-8 from the line in the final quarter, hitting four straight shots to give Riordan (14-3) a 61-53 lead with 49.8 left. The Wildcats started playing the foul game with 1:39 to go, and Riordan went 9-of-12 as a team to nearly put the game out of reach. After Conroy made one of two shots and turned his ankle, freshman Quinton Bundage, who came off the bench to defend Quanico throughout the fourth quarter, split a pair to reopen an eight-point lead with 40.4 left.
“We had to go to a freshman in the fourth quarter of a tight playoff game, and he delivered,” Curtin said of Bundage, who made three of his four attempts at the line down the stretch.
Fellow freshman Zion Sensley made one of two with 28.1 left for a 63-56 lead after a Kenneally layup, and even after a deep Toledo Rivera 3-pointer with 17.2 remaining, Quanico was forced to give his fifth foul on Robert Vaihola, who made one of two with 16.1 left.
With Greenfield urging his team to push the pace, the visitors finally cut the deficit to two with 5.5 on the clock as Kenneally drained a three off an assist from Quinn Broderick, a senior who hadn’t seen the floor until Conroy and Quanico were taken out of action.
“I’m super proud of the way we fought,” Greenfield said. “We prolonged the game and made it a 3-for-2 game.”
Early on, it looked like the Crusaders were headed for another blowout victory, much like the one they posted a month earlier to open league play. A Sensley 3-pointer gave the hosts an early 17-7 lead, and they held a 24-11 advantage early in the second quarter after a bucket from Vaihola, who scored eight of his 10 points in the first half and collected 14 rebounds for a double-double. The Fresno State commit also delivered five assists, with four going to Seck and the other to Sensley for an alley-oop. It was Vaihola’s full-court pass that set up the foul and free throws with 1.1 left.
The Wildcats evened the score up at 30 on the heels of a 19-6 run, with 3-pointers from Felix Tomaneng-Kim, Alex Rike and Toledo Rivera in the stretch. A Vaihola basket sent Riordan into the half up by two, but the Wildcats got five quick points from Conroy, who scored a team-high 16, and a three from Quanico to take their largest lead at 40-36.
Sophomore King-Jhsanni Wilhite, who transferred from SI to Riordan after his freshman year, scored eight of his 12 in the third, which the Crusaders closed on a 13-5 run to go into the final quarter up 49-45. With Bundage covering Quanico, who finished the game with six points and six assists, Riordan allowed just five points in the first six minutes of the fourth, leading 55-50 after a Seck basket in the lane.
Sensley scored seven of his 10 points in the first quarter, while Lee Hubbard III finished with seven. Kenneally’s eight points in the final 40 seconds gave him 14 on the evening, while Toledo Rivera scored 13. Aside from Broderick’s late cameo, center Ethan Jew was the only senior to take the floor for SI.
“I lose Ethan, and there’s a lot there. I think I’ll miss him more than I even know, but everyone else is coming back,” Greenfield said. “We’ve grown so much.”
The Wildcats will certainly have the Crusaders in their crosshairs next season, but for Riordan, the focus will quickly shift to Mitty. The Monarchs won the WCAL championship at Riordan two weeks earlier and have won four of the prior eight CCS Open Division titles.
It’ll be the Crusaders’ first championship game appearance, having been upset by St. Francis in the quarterfinals last year and falling in the semis to Bellarmine in 2019. For a brief moment, it looked like they would be deprived of an Open Division title game appearance by a team that they had swept in the regular season for a third consecutive year.
“Basketball at this point and time is survive and advance. It shouldn’t have been that close, and credit to them, they started fouling early and made some big shots,” Curtin said. “When I saw the ball in the air, I was already calling timeout because I had a feeling it was going in. I’ve seen a buzzer-beater go in from that same angle when I was a JV coach.”
No. 1 Mitty 88, No. 5 Half Moon Bay 63
The Monarchs will be playing for the Open Division title for the fourth time in five years and sixth time in the tournament’s nine editions after pulling away from the Cougars in the second half. Nigel Burris scored a game-high 28 for Mitty (16-1), including 17 in the first quarter as he sank five 3-pointers within eight minutes.
Mykola Ediger, one of four three-year players for Half Moon Bay (21-4), scored 25 in his final high school game, including 19 in the first half. The Cougars trailed just 38-34 at halftime after winning the second quarter 17-11, but the Monarchs opened the third on a 10-0 run with Burris and Aidan Burke leading the charge. Burke finished with 16, sophomore Derek Sangster chipped in 14 and Zach Granberry scored 12. Mikey Mitchell scored 10, while the visitors also got 16 from Ben McKnight, 10 from sophomore Drew Dorwin and nine from Sean Kennedy.
Girls
The much-anticipated matchup between Mitty and Pinewood will come to fruition in the Open Division championship game for a sixth straight year. Pinewood (16-0) raced out to a 24-5 lead over third-seeded St. Ignatius (13-5) after a quarter and rolled to an 80-41 win, while the Monarchs won 68-26 over fifth-seeded Priory (10-4).
Olivia Williams scored 13 for the Monarchs, Amelia Scharpf chipped in 10 and Hunter Hernandez added eight before leaving with an ankle injury. Hernandez’s status for the championship game, which Mitty will be playing in for the seventh time in nine years, is up in the air.
The second-seeded Panthers will be making their seventh consecutive title game appearance, but they have lost each of their prior six appearances, with the last five coming to Mitty. Una Jovanovic and Lowell transfer Elle Ladine each scored 22 for Pinewood in Wednesday’s semifinal win.
