Fairmont Prep defeats Pacifica Christian for fourth time, winning regional game 63-51

Fairmont Prep’s Abel Jimenez (left) and Atin Wright defend Pacifica Christian’s Solomon Davis Thursday night (Photos Fernando M. Donado, For OC Sports Zone)

Fairmont Prep’s boys basketball team did it again Thursday night.

For the fourth time this season, the Huskies defeated San Joaquin League rival Pacifica Christian, this time 63-51 in the second round of the CIF Southern California Division III regionals in front of a capacity crowd at Fairmont Prep.

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Their fans celebrated by chanting, “four, four, four.”

“We had some adversity obviously early and got in foul trouble,” said Fairmont Prep Coach Joedy Gardner. “That’s probably our fault; we were a little over aggressive.

“We treated that game as if it was the fourth game of a best of seven series, because as you know, it’s tough to beat a team twice, even tougher to beat them three times and then to come back and play them a fourth time…..so our mentality was to relax and get better each game and not worry about what they’re doing.

“We both know each other so well. They’re well coached, they have some great athletes. I’m just really proud of that bunch. They really put it together and focused and stayed composed and made a lot of free throws down at the end which helped us.”

Junior Atin Wright scored 20 points and Kofi Aboagye added 12 points for Fairmont Prep.

“It was a good win, we came out strong and we finished strong; those were the keys to winning,” Wright said. “Pacifica had a little run but we were able to keep them off the three-point line and that’s how we got the W.

“In the fourth quarter, we turned it up a lot. We played way better defense and rebounded. We did everything possible because we knew this could be our last game.”

Pacifica Christian ((23-8) was led by Judah Brown (18 points) and Josh Sims (15 points).

Fairmont Prep, which won the CIF 4AA title game over Pacifica Christian Saturday, moves on to the semifinal round Saturday night at home against No. 8-seeded La Jolla Country Day School and Fairmont Prep will be the home team.

La Jolla defeated University 73-57.

Pacifica Christian and Fairmont Prep were tied 25-25 at halftime. The Huskies led 40-36 going into the fourth quarter and then finished strong outscoring Pacifica Christian 23-15 in the final stanza.

“They hit some really big shots and there were some players who really stepped up that haven’t had the greatest percentages this year, but hats off to those guys,” said Pacific Christian Coach Jeffrey Berokoff. “But hats off to those guys. They came in and made shots. Unfortunately we didn’t. It just didn’t go our way unfortunately.”

But Berokoff said the game the series with Fairmont Prep was memorable.

“It’s fun; I think it’s great for high school basketball and great for Orange County basketball,” he said. “This league has turned into probably the second best league in the county this year with three teams in the finals and two teams winning state CIF playoff games.”

-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com