SAN MATEO, CA — Nothing was stopping St. Ignatius on Friday night.
Not a seven-point halftime deficit. Not a gym so packed that a fire marshal wouldn’t have been able to even get to the door to see how full Serra’s Morton Family Gymnasium was. Not a late 7-0 run that brought back visions of last year’s heartbreaking loss at the buzzer.
Instead of collapsing under pressure, St. Ignatius answered the call and won the Jungle Game for just the third time since 2000, 70-61.
“Stay humble, stay hungry,” said SI head coach Rob Marcaletti. “That’s our motto.”
The CCS second-ranked Wildcats embodied those words on Friday night, as exemplified by a modest post-game celebration, rather than the typical bonanza that comes with winning a game of such magnitude. Players and coaches alike motioned to keep the student section from rushing the floor, and while there were some bigger-than-usual grins, a few shouts from the victorious St. Ignatius players, and the typical chanting of the school fight song, there was much less in the way of exuberance and much more focus on the bigger picture.
“We’re 3-1 in league,” said Matt Redmond matter-of-factly.
With the win, St. Ignatius (10-4, 3-1 WCAL) stayed just a game behind St. Francis and Bellarmine by traversing a week full of obstacles that no other WCAL team had to face. They handled the bright lights of the Bruce-Mahoney Game on Tuesday and the adverse conditions at Serra on Friday to stay in the hunt for a league title, something the program hasn’t won since 2004.
“Everyone was freaked out that we had the Jungle Game and the Bruce-Mahoney Game in the same week. We love it,” said Marcaletti. “We just totally embraced it. Our guys are just excited and they’re so proud of how they stayed with it mentally.”
The biggest shift in momentum on Friday was undoubtedly the 18-3 run between the third and fourth quarters, with all 18 of those points coming from Darrion Trammell and Wrenn Robinson.
“Definitely the craziest week of basketball in my life,” said Robinson. “It’s cool to see the school come together and come out to support the team.”
A Trammell putback cut the Serra lead to 48-46, and Robinson tied the game shortly thereafter. After the game was halted for a nasty injury to Serra’s Colin McCarthy, Robinson sank a 3-pointer to put the Wildcats ahead heading into the fourth quarter. That lead ballooned to nine, and though the Padres trimmed it to 57-51 on a Masie Mohammadi three, St. Ignatius scored the next five points, including some tremendous teamwork to lead to a Robinson and-1.
Teddy Snyder then saved a missed shot from going out of bounds and redirected it to Brandon Beckman, who fed a driving Robinson for the basket and foul. A Trammell jumper on the following possession grew the lead to 11.
Of course, the seventh-ranked Padres had one last push in them to bring back visions of the 2017 game, which they won on Parker McDonald’s dramatic buzzer-beater. Another five points from Mohammadi trimmed the lead to 62-56, and Mohammadi fed McDonald in the lane on an inbound pass to bring the Padres within four.
But Redmond would come up with the answer on the next possession with a baseline drive, a poetic play for the San Bruno native who was crushed by hordes of ecstatic Serra fans rushing the court after last year’s finish.
The game ended in typical fashion, with Trammell converting all six of his free throws in the final minute for a game-high 23 points, including 12 in the fourth quarter.
Until that crucial 18-3 run, St. Ignatius had kept pace despite trailing by as much as nine points. Beckman, who announced his commitment to the University of Chicago earlier in the week, scored eight of his 16 points in the first quarter. Benjamin Davis and Neal Begovich each scored just two points, but both were huge. A Davis putback late in the second quarter cut the lead to 35-29 and Begovich’s short jumper gave the Wildcats a 44-43 lead with three minutes left in the third, their first advantage since the final minute of the opening quarter.
On the defensive side, the Wildcats had one simple adjustment to make after allowing 38 first-half points.
“Normally we meet outside as a coaching staff for five minutes during halftime to just kind of pick each other’s brains and see what’s going on,” said Marcaletti. “I looked at my guys and said, ‘I know what’s wrong, we don’t even need to talk about it.’ We’re just out of our defensive gameplan. We were over-rotating and we weren’t taking care of the ball. We were just allowing those little dump-downs. We had no sink-and-fill protection on the weak side.”
That lack of protection allowed Serra (9-5, 1-3 WCAL) to constantly feed the ball into the post while the SI defense was preoccupied with Mohammadi and McDonald.
McDonald, making his first start in almost a full month as he progresses back from mononucleosis, did score 20, and Mohammadi scored nine of his 14 in the fourth quarter to keep the Padres within striking distance, but Serra controlled the first half through players like Paul Besse, who scored six points.
“We’re not very big,” said the 6-foot-3 senior. “So I’m doing my best to use my speed to my advantage.”
Defense was the bigger issue for the Padres, who allowed a season-high 70 points. After holding Valley Christian to 43 in a WCAL-opening victory and allowing no opponent over 57 in their first 11 games, opponents have now scored at least 64 in three straight contests.
“Our goal is to keep teams in the 40s,” said head coach Chuck Rapp after just his third Jungle Game loss in 17 years. “You give up 70 points, that’s just too much, and it’s disappointing because I thought we played well enough offensively to win.”
Still, there were encouraging signs for Serra, headlined by McDonald’s all-around play. His deep 3-pointer restored a 46-44 lead in the third quarter, and he found Denzel McCollum on the next possession to stretch the lead to four before the defining Wildcat run. He also sank eight of 10 free throws on the night. Both teams were excellent from the line for most of the game, with neither team missing at all from the stripe in the first half.
Having McDonald and McCarthy together would make for a deadly pair, but McCarthy collided with a St. Ignatius player when going for a rebound with 20.6 seconds left in the third quarter and was taken to the hospital with a bloody gash on his face and damage to his teeth.
McCarthy had 11 points and tied McCollum for the team lead with seven rebounds. His status moving forward is uncertain, but it would be safe to assume that he’ll have to play with a facemask when he does return to the court. The Padres next play on Tuesday at No. 1 Bellarmine.
Around the WCAL
Jake Wojcik eclipsed the 1,000 career point mark en route to a 21-point night as CCS No. 1 Bellarmine (12-2, 4-0 WCAL) led No. 12 Valley Christian (9-4, 0-4) by 20 through three quarters en route to a 75-61 win. The Warriors were without 6-foot-7 Cameron Fini (flu).
No. 3 St. Francis (12-2, 4-0) got 23 points from Cincinnati-bound senior Logan Johnson and 13 from Roy Yuan as the Lancers held on for dear life for a 12th straight victory, 61-59 over No. 13 Mitty (2-12, 0-4). The Monarchs nearly came back from an 18-point deficit for the second Friday in a row, but once again could never take the lead after falling behind. Riley Grigsby and freshman Michael Mitchell each scored 14 for the host Monarchs, with Grigsby scoring 10 of his 14 in the fourth quarter.
Bryce Monroe’s 3-pointer to end the first half sent No. 9 Sacred Heart Cathedral (11-3, 2-2) into the break with the lead and set the stage for a 22-point third quarter as the Fightin’ Irish went on to a 70-64 win over No. 8 Riordan (11-3, 2-2). Monroe, who was offered by USF earlier in the week, led all scorers with 24 points, and he was joined in double-figures by Gary Hudson (17 points) and E.J. Neal (15) while Amin Oglesby pulled down a game-high 19 rebounds. The visiting Crusaders got 21 points from James Chun, 17 from Watida Mukukula and 13 from Je’Lani Clark. Riordan was able to trim a 12-point deficit to four in the final minute before the Irish closed the game out at the line.
