SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Talk entering Friday’s CCS Open Division Quarterfinal between Riordan and St. Francis was centered around how the Lancers were going to try to stop the Riordan duo of Je’Lani Clark and Bryce Monroe.
Maybe it should’ve been about how the Crusaders were supposed to try to slow down Harlan Banks and Isaiah Kerr.
The pair of sophomore guards combined for 34 points, just shy of Clark and Monroe’s 37, doing so on 16 fewer shots, and combined with Vince Barringer’s five 3-pointers, the seventh-seeded Lancers led wire-to-wire to avenge a pair of regular-season losses with a 66-60 upset at Fremont High in Sunnyvale.
“We’re kind of the underdogs. We’ve got nothing to lose out here,” said Kerr, who ran the offense to the tune of 11 points and seven rebounds.
While Riordan (20-5) was moderately successful at limiting Kerr offensively, he committed just one turnover and opened up opportunities all over for Banks, who scored 23 and matched Kerr on the glass with seven boards. The Sacred Heart Prep transfer had a pair of pivotal and-1s in the fourth, first with 6:49 remaining to give the Lancers their largest lead at 48-37, then again with 4:48 left after the second-seeded Crusaders had scored six straight and St. Francis center Ryan Daly dislocated his shoulder.
“The seniors have worked very hard for us and just put in everything they have,” Kerr said.
While many teams with so much talent from underclassmen can have chemistry issues, that hasn’t been a problem for St. Francis (15-10), with the sophomores and seniors coming together in near-perfect harmony. That meant rallying around Daly, who hurt the same shoulder he had injured playing football on a play that Clark (13 points, 12 rebounds) finished off with a putback. Banks got the and-1 on the ensuing inbound, then broke the 20-point mark by answering a Monroe drive.
A baseline drive by Trevor Leon put the Lancers up 55-46 with just under three minutes left before the Crusaders finally came to life, with Justin Miller scoring off a feed from Monroe, Monroe finishing off an assist from Clark and, after Monroe drew a moving screen, a putback from 6-foot-9 forward Riiny Riiny, his lone points of the night. Dominic Wilson came up with a steal on the next possession, which led to a pair of free throw attempts from Clark. On a night where Riordan (20-5) went just 6-of-13 at the line, Clark was the bright spot, going 4-for-5 and making both with 1:35 left to make it a one-point game.
Having squandered an 18-point lead the prior week against Serra, the Lancers weren’t letting this one slip away. Barringer found himself open at the top of the arc for his fifth three of the night.
“We did a thing called curl curl,” said Barringer who went 5-for-8 on threes. “We screen each other, I popped out, I was open and I slipped through. Didn’t think about it, it went in.”
After a Crusader miss at the other end and a timeout called by head coach Mike Motil just before John Frazier, playing in Daly’s spot, would have been whistled for a travel, gave the Lancers a chance to regroup with 51.1 on the clock. With their backs against the wall, the Crusaders did everything they could to stop the ensuing inbound, but Kerr managed to get it in and go to the line, making one of two with 46 seconds on the clock. Leon’s sixth and final steal of the day was followed by one more free throw with 39 left, and though Monroe would do all he could to keep Riordan in it, making a pair of threes in the final minute to finish with a game-high 24 points, St. Francis would finish things off at the line with two free throws apiece from Leon and Banks, plus one more from Kerr and one by Kyle Rosecrans. Those four misses in the final minute were the only ones the Lancers would miss all night as they shot 17 of 21 at the charity stripe.
Until the final sequences, Riordan actually had more attempts at the line, but penetration against the Lancer zone was difficult. Having beaten St. Francis in the paint in the prior two meetings, early misses from the Crusader bigs motivated the guards to try to take over the game, but they were left with stagnant looks from the perimeter and shot 8-of-24 from 3-point range as a team, which was inflated by Monroe’s late shots, which he made to keep his team in it.
“We communicated on defense better than we normally do,” said Banks.
That communication on defense was highlighted both by the ability to constantly send extra defenders at Clark and Monroe and by Leon, who had 12 points to round out his game.
“He has a sneaky athleticism about him,” said Motil. “He has really good anticipation, and when he gets it going, it’s like this.”
While the Lancers will turn their attention to the semifinals, there are difficult questions for Riordan to answer in the next week. A team pegged as a favorite to win both the WCAL and the Open Division had to settle for a shared league title and couldn’t follow it up in the section tournament, leaving the state playoffs as their last shot for glory with a loaded senior class.
“At this point in the season, you hope you don’t have to put a sense of urgency into the team. We’ll re-examine that,” head coach Joey Curtin said. “The season’s not over yet, but we have to regroup and we have to play much better than we did tonight.”
No. 3 Bellarmine 59, No. 6 Sacred Heart Prep 43
Tremendous defensive quarters and secondary scoring have been a common theme for the Bellarmine Bells this season, and they got both on Friday night in a CCS Open Division Quarterfinal at Santa Clara High, holding the Sacred Heart Prep Gators to just three points in the second quarter and getting a game-high 17 from Anthony Piro, who knocked down five 3-pointers en route to a 59-43 victory.
Bellarmine (22-3) also got 12 points from Ryan Kiachian, 11 points and seven assists from Quinn Denker and 10 points from Ian Elam, taking a 29-16 halftime lead on the heels of that second quarter and ensuring Sacred Heart Prep (21-4) could never launch a serious rally. Charlie Selna led the Gators with 12, Jai Deshpande scored 11 and sophomore point guard Aidan Braccia finished with 10.
