Mater Dei narrowly escapes with victory over Loyola, 72-70

Freshman point guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright missed a last-second three-pointer for Los Angeles Loyola, and Santa Ana Mater Dei escaped with a 72-70 victory Thursday in a Southern California Regional quarterfinal game at Mater Dei.

Xavier Johnson scored 30 points, Katin Reinhardt had 13 and Stanley Johnson and El Stalzer each added nine for the fourth-seeded Monarchs (29-3), who will travel to top-seeded Long Beach Poly on Saturday.

“On the last play, we were trying to deny [Jackson-Cartwright] the ball, and if he did get it, our instructions were to make him pass and don’t let him get it back,” Stanley Johnson said. “Thank God he missed it.”

After Jackson-Cartwright made a three-pointer to cut Loyola’s deficit to 71-70 with 9.6 seconds left, Justin Childress immediately fouled Mater Dei’s Katin Reinhardt on the inbounds play. Reinhardt made the second of two free throws.

Childress, Julian Harrell and Joe Stein all fouled out in the final two minutes for Loyola (25-6).

Stein scored 17 points, including four three-pointers, Harrell had 14 and Jackson-Cartwright added 13 for the unseeded Cubs, who nearly pulled off their second straight last-second victory after beating San Diego Torrey Pines on a tip-in at the buzzer by Childress in the first round.

Johnson banked in a three-pointer at the first-half buzzer from well beyond the arc to give Mater Dei a 36-33 halftime lead.

The Cubs trailed, 12-4, four minutes into the game but Khaliq Bedart-Ghani’s buzzer-beater gave them a 18-17 lead at the end of the first quarter.

In the preceding girls’ regional quarterfinal, Mater Dei overcame a slow start to grind out a 57-41 victory over Santa Monica.

Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis scored 16 points and Alexyz Vaioletama and Kiki Alofaituli each added 11 for the top-seeded Monarchs (31-1), the No. 1-ranked team in the nation. They have won 23 straight games since their only loss to Long Beach Poly on Dec. 21.

steve.galluzzo@latimes.com