Crean Lutheran’s Chadrack Mpoyi drives to the basket as Foothill’s Christian Kimlin defends. (Photos courtesy Crean Lutheran Shutterbugs, John Luciano).
Crean Lutheran’s boys basketball team, ranked second in the county, survived a late challenge by Foothill and finished strong to capture a 57-45 victory over the Knights in a Crestview League game at Foothill Tuesday night.
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After leading by 14 points going into the final quarter and by 14 points with 4:19 left in the game, Foothill (7-14, 0-3) managed to cut the lead to 50-45 on a basket by Marlee Slone with 44 seconds remaining.
However, Crean Lutheran (16-6, 3-1) answered with seven straight points (three by Bryce Coleman off a layup and free throws) to seal the win, bouncing back from Friday’s road loss against La Habra. Chadrack Mpoyi led the Saints with 19 points. Junior guard Caden Jones added 12 points, including two on free throws in the final minute and Hunter Caplan had seven points for Crean Lutheran.
Braeden Davidson (who was playing against his former team) and Slone each had 10 points and Justice Linares nine points and three 3-pointers to lead Foothill. Davidson also had six assists.
“We couldn’t hit a lot of outside shots,” said Crean Lutheran Coach Austin Loeb. “We’re struggling from the outside and we had to find different ways to score. What we tried to do is push the ball, they run that 2-3 zone, in transition and got some transitional points and got some easier baskets and then we settled in.
“We only had nine guys available tonight, I was proud of some of the guys who stepped up off the bench (Matteo Hernandez and Kauan Medeiros) and we eked one out, it wasn’t the prettiest win, but that’s what matters in league, right? Getting the ugly ones, we will grow from that and get back to the grind, this Friday is our bye, get back to the drawing board and get some guys healthy for next league game.”
Crean Lutheran was without key injured players Jacob Majok, Will Malual and Amari Reynolds, who could return to action in a non-league game Saturday at home vs. Fairmont Prep.
Foothill Coach Yousof Etemadi, who has a young team this year, was proud of how his team battled. He looked at it as another test to help his team in the future.
“I thought we played well tonight,” he said. “We executed on offense and got the stops we needed on defense to give us a chance. We had them tied in the second half but couldn’t make the big go-ahead play. We played hard and played together and I’m proud of our effort tonight.”
Crean Lutheran held a 29-26 lead at halftime but Foothill tied the contest on a 3-pointer by Davidson early in the third quarter. However Crean Lutheran regained control, led by the 6-11 Mpoyi, who had 12 points in the third quarter and several dunks.
“I think we can get better and play as a team every single time. We were missing some players like Jacob, but we need to play very hard every game,” said Mpoyi, who has committed to play at Minnesota. “I think our first half wasn’t good enough and we tried to come back and to score more and move the ball and play good defense and I think we did a really good job. We got to keep working.”
Caplan, the Saints junior guard, said the team needs to play better.
“It was a bad win, we’re not happy with the win,” he said. “We don’t think we played to our potential, but a win is a win and we’re back on the positive side of things. We got practice tomorrow morning, just another day to get better. But teams are very good in our league, Foothill didn’t hit shots going down to the stretch, we left them wide open, I wouldn’t say we necessarily won, we just didn’t lose, but that’s not going to work going into the future, and especially when playoffs start happening.
“We’re going to be in a high division, we don’t want to get bounced out early. We just got to get better, play more team basketball, but a win is a win, I’m just happy we got the win.”
Crean Lutheran has been projected to be either in the open or in Division 1 when the CIF playoffs begin.
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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