Prep Basketball : Southern Section Boys’ 5-A : Mater Dei Breezes Into Final, 75-56

Serra High School Coach George McDaniel suggested that his basketball team was tailor-made for top-ranked Mater Dei, but one had to wonder what blueprint McDaniel was reading.

Mater Dei rolled to its 28th consecutive victory and qualified for its third straight trip to the championship game with an easy 75-56 win over the Cavaliers before 4,533 fans Thursday night at the Long Beach Arena.

The win set up a showdown with second-seeded Ocean View (24-3) in the Southern Section boys’ 5-A title game at 8:45 Saturday night in the same facility. The game will be a rematch of the Tournament of Champions title game that Mater Dei won, 57-52.

McDaniel told reporters that he had scouted Mater Dei all season and knew what the Monarchs could do. Well, everybody knows what Mater Dei can do . The problem is containing a team that has won 85 games in the past three seasons.

Nobody has figured out a way to stop Mater Dei scoring star Tom Lewis. The 6-8 senior scored 35 points and had 11 rebounds against Serra despite picking up his third foul with 6:30 remaining in the first half.

Lewis has 2,423 points in his three-year career and needs just 38 to surpass former Cal State Fullerton All-Amercan Leon Wood for third place on the all-time Southern Section career scoring list. The Monarchs will also attempt to do something no other Orange County team has ever done--finish the season undefeated.

Mater Dei looked practically unbeatable against an outmanned Serra team that was playing without guard Darryl May. May, who averages 9.1 points and 7.2 assists per game, was seriously injured in an automobile accident earlier in the day.

The Cavaliers had only one scoring threat, center Mark Sutherlin, who scored 14 of his 21 points in the second half with his team trailing by 20 points. Physically, the Cavaliers couldn’t match up to the bigger Mater Dei team.