JSerra coach pleased with 25-win season and excited about prospects for the future

JSerra standout Ian Martinez takes a jumper in a CIF playoff game against Windward. (Photo: Fernando M. Donado, For OC Sports Zone

After wrapping up a successful 2019-20 season JSerra boys basketball Coach Keith Wilkinson is already looking forward to the future and said the prospects appear to be bright.

“We will have a few guys who now will be on their third year of varsity basketball and a lot of great leadership,” he said. “We also have some very good young talent coming up. If we buy in on the defensive end, share the basketball and love our teammates more than ourselves than we have a chance to be very good again.”

JSerra wound up the season with a 25-9 overall record, losing to Windward 67-63 in the semifinals of the CIF Division 1 playoffs.

The team won three tournament championships: the North Orange County championship over Mayfair, the Capo Valley Christian championship over Mission Viejo and the Torrey Pines National Division championship over Sheldon. The Lions defeated Desert Pines of Nevada at St. Augustine and Desert Vista of Arizona, “all top teams in the country,” Wilkinson said.

The Lions also made great strides in league play, finishing 6-4.

“We won six ames, most in the Trinity League ever, without our two best players Fran (6-11 Francesco Borra) for seven games and Ian (Martinez) for five,” WIlkinson said “The previous high was five. We won 25 games, most since joining the Trinity League and beat last year’s mark of 22.”

The Lions also had a team GPA of 3.62 in the first semester, the coach said.

“We struggled at home this year at 3-5 which was strange because we were 5-0 at home the year before, but we were tremendous on the road with a record of 9-1 with some big wins at St. John Bosco, at Bishop Montgomery, at Rancho Verde, at Santa Clarita Christian and at St. Augustine, so that was a huge bright spot,” Wilkinson said.

The Lions were led by 6-3 senior guard Ian Martinez, who has signed with Utah.

“Ian Martinez had an amazing career and year this year,” Wilkson said. “(I) believe he should be OC player of the year.”

The season had its share of challenges for the Lions, the coach added.

“We battled through a lot of adversity this year and our group stayed resilient,” Wilkinson said. “We had a lot of injuries, we had a lot of sickness, and we found ways to piece lineups together when we didn’t have our full group. We were only able to play four games with our entire team and it showed how good we could be when we had them all.”

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