SAN JOSE, CA — The St. Francis High basketball team wanted to come out fast in its Central Coast Section Open Division semifinal game against Archbishop Mitty.
The top-seeded Lancers not only came out fast but furious as well.
After needing an epic comeback to beat No. 8 seed Santa Cruz in its Open Division opener St. Francis needed no such thing as the Lancers led from start to finish en route to a 55-38 victory over the No. 5-seeded Monarchs to earn a return trip back to the CCS Open Division title game.
“We didn’t even want to make it close tonight,” St. Francis senior guard Curtis Witt said. “No complacency tonight we were looking to beat them by as many points as possible.”
After needing overtime to beat Santa Cruz 68-58 four days ago the Lancers looked like the team that has been ranked No. 1 in the Prep2Prep CCS Top 25 rankings all season.
St. Francis (25-2) held Mitty to only two first quarter points and led 16-2 at one point early in the second quarter.
The Lancers went into halftime leading 23-9.
“We came out really slow against Santa Cruz and we knew the big key to tonight’s game was to come out fast,” Noah Stapes of St. Francis said. “We’ve come out slow a few times this year and we have been fortunate to fight back and win but we can’t do that against Mitty; we can’t come out slow against such a good team.”
St. Francis will move on to face No. 3 seed Bellarmine which upset the 2015-2016 Open Division champions and No. 2 seed Serra 53-51 in the other Open semifinal Tuesday.
Both the Lancers and Bells are vying for their first Open Division title when they square-off Friday night at 8 p.m. at Santa Clara University.
The Lancers came out like a team wanting to make a statement and that’s what they did against the Monarchs.
“They were playing with a sense of desperation,” Mitty coach Tim Kennedy said. “That’s where everyone should be playing right now --it’s the playoffs. That’s the mindset you should have right now and I don’t think we matched that the first half.”
Mitty (14-12) which defeated No. 4 seed Menlo-Atherton 47-42 to earn a spot in the semis, was able to cut St. Francis’ lead into single digits twice in the third quarter but on both instances the Lancers answered with a field goal.
“It’s all about energy and being active,” St. Francis coach Mike Motil said. “We were aggressive tonight -- last Friday we weren’t the aggressor, Santa Cruz was. The kids knew that I didn’t have to wave any magic wand; the kids knew they had to come play as hard as they can.”
Stapes finished with a game-high 13 points while Witt and Logan Johnson each scored 11 points with Johnson adding three assists. Darius Thomas scored seven points for the Lancers.
Riley Grigsby and Nick LaBruna eache scored 11 points for Mitty with Grigsby adding eight rebounds and LaBruna six. Elijah Wedlow scored seven points for Mitty which will visit Serra on Thursday in the Open Division third place game at 7 p.m.
Facing a team for a third time this season helped the Lancers from letting the Monarchs do what they like to do.
“We knew that their bread and butter is, to get the ball on the block,” Motil said. “We knew that we had to have some swarming defense down there and dig balls out and rebound the basketball and try to run right back at them.”
Added Stapes: “We keyed in on all their guys so we know what was coming and we defended really well which was awesome.”
Now St. Francis sets its sight on Friday night and a return trip to the Open Division title game.
Last year the Lancers were within three Jake Killingsworth free throws of capturing the school's first Open Division title.
“There’s some unfinished business that we couldn’t accomplish last year,” Stapes said. “We’re going to prepare the rest of the week for this game and it’s a blessing to be going back to the same spot, but we (have) to finish this time.”
