Crean Lutheran players and coaches celebrate after defeating Tustin for a share of the Empire League title. (Photos courtesy Crean Lutheran Shutterbugs, John Luciano and Ted Rigoni).
Crean Lutheran High School’s boys basketball team kept the streak alive Thursday night.
The Saints defeated Tustin 65-49 at Crean Lutheran to capture the fourth Empire League championship in a row for the program. Crean Lutheran (16-12, 9-1) shares the title with Cypress, which also finished 9-1.
The two teams split their series this year. Since they are different CIF playoff divisions, each team will go as a No. 1 team.
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“It feels great, all glory to God, we all came into this game and said, ‘we got to win this or we’re not champions,’ that’s something we take pride in, it’s our fourth in a row so it was great to keep that legacy going on and be the team that is hanging (a banner) in the rafters so it’s a great feeling,” said Saints sophomore Kaiden Bailey, who led his team with 19 points, seven coming in the fourth quarter.
Crean Lutheran has played one of the toughest schedules in school history with numerous games against open division squads, but the Saints seem to be clicking entering the CIF Division 1 playoffs next week.
“That was the goal with coach putting together a tougher schedule for us so that by the end of the year we’re the best team that we can be going into the playoffs so we can have playoff success,” Bailey said. “Credit to coach for that.”
Coach Nate Klitzing said Tuesday’s 69-52 victory at Cypress was one of the best of the year for his team, which carried the momentum into Thursday. The defensive effort against Cypress was one of the best he has seen in six years, calling it “inspiring.”
“I’m excited and really proud of our guys,” Klitzing said. “We’ve been through a lot, we’re young, we’re inexperienced so our season has been a lot of highs and a lot of lows and everything in between but I’m proud of the resiliency this group has shown and (they’ve) continued to get better throughout the season.
“It was a good turning point when we got beat here by Cypress, we knew that we had to comeback if we wanted to continue our streak and make it four in a row league championships, we knew we had to fight and get better and improve.”
Jacob Majok added 11 points, Braeden Davidson 10 points and Troy Jenkins and Milanas Luksas eight points each for the Saints, who led 33-21 at halftime.
Tustin battled until the final buzzer. Carson Jue, who led his team with 12 points, hit a 3-pointer with 2:46 left in the third quarter to cut the lead to 36-31.
But Klitzing called timeout and the Saints were able to finish the quarter strong with a 47-33 lead going into the final stanza before extending the lead to 17 points in the fourth quarter.
Tustin (17-10, 6-4) will enter the CIF playoffs as the No. 3 team from the league. Coach Ringo Bossemeyer praised his players’ efforts against the Saints.
“Carson Jue’s aggressive and relentless mindset against a talented Crean Lutheran squad exemplified our team’s play both offensively and defensively tonight,” Bossenmeyer said. “Looking forward to competing with this tremendous group of young men in the CIF playoffs.”
Johnny Sagarino added eight points for Tustin.
Crean Lutheran seniors Jake Williamson, Milanas Luksas, manager Tyler Oshima and Troy Jenkins were honored before the game and joined at mid-court by family members.
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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