Segerstrom’s Alex Chavez is guarded by Mater Dei’s Ryan Evans Wednesday night.
Segerstrom’s boys basketball team faced a monumental challenge Wednesday night facing one of the top high school teams in the country.
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For a half, the Jaguars stayed within striking distance.
But Mater Dei’s boys basketball team, ranked No. 1 in Orange County and No. 5 in this week’s CIF Division 1 poll, took its play to another level in the second half to defeat Segerstrom 70-21 at the Beach Bash Tournament in a game featuring two Santa Ana-based schools.
Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight said the Monarchs have faced Segerstrom in lower level games, but not in varsity competition. Segerstrom Coach Brandon Rogers, in his fourth year as head coach, said he also believed it was the first time the teams have met on the varsity level.
“I don’t think we’ve ever played them; on lower levels, but never on varsity,” McKnight said.
Mater Dei, with a young but talented starting lineup and a deep bench, was too much for Segerstrom (2-8).
“I thought in the second half, obviously we turned it up,” McKnight said. “We got more active. Again, we need to come out as active and energetic to start the game. It’s a young team, but we need to just keep picking up the momentum and I thought we got going a little bit there in the second half which I was happy to see.”
Mater Dei (5-1) had a balanced scoring attack led by Aidan Prukop with 13 points. Harrison Hornery had 12 points and Wilhelm Breidenbach and Devin Askew had 10 points each for the Monarchs.
Mater Dei led 14-8 after one quarter and then brought in back-ups for most of the second quarter. Segerstrom (2-8) hung in with Mater Dei holding a 31-19 lead at halftime.
However, at the start of the third quarter, Mater Dei went on a 14-0 run to put the game out of reach. Mater Dei outscored Segerstrom 29-2 in the third quarter and extended its lead to 42 points in the fourth quarter. The game finished with a running clock.
Alex Chavez had 6 points and Ramsey Pulido 5 points to lead the Jaguars.
“I felt like we really competed in the first half,” Rogers said. “We were physical and we were smart on offense so they didn’t get a lot of transition opportunities and we were able to hold them to 31 points, which I think against a team that talented offensively, is really good.
“I knew it was going to be a tough time on offense going against their length and quickness and size. But the second half, we just did not play the same. We might have run out of steam a little bit. And it was really hard for us offensively and it led to a lot of their transition opportunities and the game kind of got out of hand. But I’m really proud of my guys for having competed and played in the first half.”
Rogers hopes the match-up, which was arranged by tournament officials, will help in the long run. He admits to being surprised but not upset when he heard his team was being matched up against Mater Dei. The two teams are grouped in the same pool. It’s Segerstrom’s first time in the Beach Bash Tourney.
“Coming into the game, we knew we had to play hard; that was our main goal,” added Segerstrom senior Jonathan Morales. “The first half was very tough. The second half, we knew we had to turn it up but they were going to turn it up as well. We tried coming out strong in the second half, they changed something up and we couldn’t adjust quick enough.
“That was a great half. We tried our hardest, we worked hard to prepare for this.”
MATER DEI WINS OPENER AT BEACH BASH TOURNAMENT
-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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