SAN JOSE — Through all the successes and heartbreak he’s experienced in his 27 years coaching the Bellarmine Bells, Patrick Schneider has typically been one of the more mild-mannered coaches around, never getting too high or too low and always giving calm, calculated answers to post-game questions from the media.
After the way his team defended on Wednesday, though, he was grinning from ear to ear.
The Bells put on a sensational defensive clinic in the CCS Open Division semifinals to advance to a fifth consecutive championship game, suffocating rival Saint Francis to the tune of a 57-28 blowout.
“What we talked about in the locker room afterwards was how proud we were of our defense, from player 1 to player 17, to hold a team that’s as offensively dynamic as St. Francis is to 28,” a beaming Schneider said. “That was everybody on the team putting out on the floor tonight and working in practice, getting the game plan in, mastering St. Francis’ preferred action and locking in on those sets.”
Aside from one 7-2 run in the first quarter, third-seeded Bellarmine (23-3) ensured the Lancers hardly had any room to work with, taking a 29-12 halftime lead that would have been even larger if not for a deep three by Kyle Rosecrans in the final seconds of the half, then building that lead to 27 in the third and going up by as much as 33 in the fourth before emptying the bench with 2:54 left, much to the delight of the modest contingent of students that fought through headache-inducing traffic to make it to the 6 p.m. game at Independence High.
“Every day in practice, we’re working on defense to see what we can do to improve,” said Ian Elam, who scored a game-high 15 points. “It starts with communication. All the little things that don’t come into the stat sheet, that’s what’s important.”
Elam was the cornerstone of a defense that blocked seven shots and held St. Francis (15-11) to just 10-of-50 shooting while also putting the game away by scoring nine in the third quarter.
“John Wooden used to say there are three four-minute periods in every game you need to be great in,” Schneider said. “The first four minutes of the game, the first four minutes of the second half and the last four minutes.”
By opening the second half strong, the Bells ensured that Rosecrans’ 3-pointer to close the first half wouldn’t lead to any further momentum, getting a corner three from Elam on the opening possession and six straight points from the 6-foot-6 senior midway through the quarter to open up a 40-15 lead. Quinn Denker, who scored 12 on the night, followed with an and-1.
Even as the seventh-seeded Lancers searched for answers deeper and deeper in their bench, getting four offensive rebounds from Anay Nagarajan and an and-1 from Nick Weitzel, there was simply no answer for Bellarmine’s defense, especially with Ryan Daly out after dislocating his shoulder in the fourth quarter of Friday’s upset win over Riordan.
“Daly’s kind of our outlet. He’s the guy that can compact a defense, and we couldn’t find anybody to really bother them in the paint,” head coach Mike Motil said. “We ended up taking a bunch of really tough shots and not making any, and when you do get in there and have a 6-9 kid contesting everything, it can be really tough.”
John Mansur and Harlan Banks each shared high honors for St. Francis, scoring seven apiece. Mansur, who seldom saw the court in WCAL play but was forced into more minutes by Daly’s injury, banked in a three to cut the Bellarmine lead to 12-7 with 3:10 in the first.
“Anay and John did a great job trying to get us going,” Motil said.
The Mansur-fueled run late in the first wouldn’t last for long as the Bells got the final six points of the quarter on four points from Denker plus a Jackson Dupree putback. Anthony Piro, who scored 10, opened the second quarter with a steal and layup, and an Elam putback of a Vince Barringer block put Bellarmine up 20 late in the quarter before Rosecrans’ lone basket of the night.
With the outcome well in hand down the stretch, the Bells were able to bring in their last few players to close the game, highlighted by an appearance from Enow Akem and cameos from JV callups Theoren Brouillette and Michael Oliverio.
“They do literally everything for us,” Denker said of the back end of the bench. “They’re our scout team during practice; they do everything to make us better. When we’re playing ,they cheer us on, so it means everything to be able to cheer them on.”
For a semifinal game to end with benches emptied is nearly unprecedented in the eight years of the CCS Open Division. Before Wednesday, no game had been decided by 19 points, and none of Bellarmine’s prior four semifinal wins had been by more than seven. Even that seven-point win comes with an asterisk, as it went to overtime. The Bells’ three regulation semifinal wins, including two over St. Francis, were all within five points.
Winning a semifinal game in such convincing fashion may be new territory for the Bells, and heading to Stanford’s Maples Pavilion for Friday’s championship game will be a longer trip than to Santa Clara’s Leavey Center, which had hosted the prior seven, but playing for the title will be nothing new for Bellarmine.
“Coach always says from the beginning of the year, this is our main goal from the first day that we start,” Denker said.