Angelus League : No Stalling Inevitable--Mater Dei 25-0

Mater Dei High School senior Tom Lewis had a little time to pause and reflect on his accomplishments Friday night. So did all of his teammates. The oddity of it all was that it was taking place during the Monarchs’ game with Servite.

With Servite intent on being as inoffensive as possible, the Monarchs had plenty of opportunities to relax. The Friars took all of three shots in the third quarter, which might not be such an alarming statistic unless you consider they trailed by 18 points at halftime. It was not your run-of-the-mill delay game . . . not when the team that’s doing the delaying is trailing by nine baskets.

But there was no delaying what seemed inevitable. Mater Dei (25-0) became the first Orange County team in nine years to finish the regular season undefeated with a 63-32 win in front of an estimated 1,200 spectators at Cypress College.

Lewis had 24 points to give him 2,321 in his career and move him past former Ocean View star Wayne Carlander as the No. 4 career scorer in Southern Section history. The win also wrapped up Mater Dei’s third consecutive unbeaten Angelus League season.

It was early in the third quarter that Lewis and the Monarchs, leading, 50-19, were afforded the chance to think about things. Mater Dei had all five of its players bunched in the lane--in what looked more like a team meeting than a zone defense--while Servite persisted with its delay tactics and passed the ball around the perimeter.

The idea was to try to entice the Friars into shooting the ball, but they would have none of that. The whole situation was laughable, but Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight wasn’t laughing. McKnight said he went to the huddled defense after growing tired of Servite’s stall tactics.

“I was just frustrated,” he said. “I mean, why?”

Servite Coach Larry Walker had an answer.

“We haven’t got the personnel to beat that team,” he said. “If we’d have stayed ahead, we would have played, but I’m not going to burn my kids out trying to play catch up.”

Walker has his reasons for trying to conserve energy. His team meets St. Paul tonight at Cypress College at 7:30 in a playoff game to determine the league’s third-place finisher. The teams finished the league season tied for third at 5-4.

Walker said three of his starters--Bob Coady, Scot Hornung and Matt Honikel--were still recovering from illness and he was not about to play full speed on the eve of a game that will determine the Friars’ post-season fate.

“We’ll be a lot fresher for tomorrow,” Walker said. “We’ll be a lot stronger. As long as we’re ahead, we’ll play. But once they got 12 or 15 points up, that was the end of it.”

Servite’s only lead didn’t last long. The Friars scored the game’s first three points and led, 5-4, until Mater Dei went on a 13-1 spurt the last four minutes of the first quarter. The Friars were outscored, 18-9, in the second quarter and 15-4 in the third, but never abandoned the delay game.

“I just thought it was embarrassing to his kids,” McKnight said of Walker’s tactics.

Walker: “It’s no big deal. He would have done the same thing if he were in my shoes . . . if he was undermanned and had a big game tomorrow.”

This was not the type of game that helps Lewis in his pursuit of scoring records, but he managed to get his points. He was 8 of 14 from the field, 8 of 9 from the free throw line, and had 5 rebounds. A three-point play with 2:41 left in the third quarter moved Lewis past Carlander on the scoring list.

Mater Dei forward Mike Mitchell even managed to get in a few crowd-pleasers among his 17 points. Mitchell followed a Lewis slam dunk with a twisting, reverse dunk midway through the third quarter that gave the Mater Dei fans a much-needed break from their “Booorrring, booorrring” chants.

Mitchell also took a lob from Jim Mounce for a slam dunk that gave the Monarchs a 50-19 lead early in the fourth quarter.

Servite reserve Pete O’Donnell had 15 points on a night when the Friars’ starters combined to score only eight. The Friars took only 23 shots in the game, and most of those were taken by reserves. Walker gave his ailing starters plenty of time to recover on the Servite bench.

Honikel, who entered the week averaging 20.1 points per game, had three, all in the first quarter.

McKnight was asked afterward if he expects to see similar tactics employed by Mater Dei opponents in the Southern Section playoffs.

“Nothing like that,” he said.

SERVITE (32)--Hornung 0, Coady 0, Honikel 3, Osgood 3, Smalley 1, O’Donnell 15, Cho 1, Murphy 7, Hinkle 1.

MATER DEI (63)--Lewis 24, Mitchell 17, Thomas 2, Kelly 9, Mounce 6, Dwyer 2, Rembert 2, Joyce 1.

Servite 6 9 4 13 -- 32

Mater Dei 15 18 15 15 -- 63