5-A Boys’ Basketball Playoffs : Mater Dei Is in Final for 4th Straight Year, Defeats St. Bernard

A CIF Southern Section basketball championship without Mater Dei High School? Hardly.

St. Bernard had other ideas Wednesday night, but it was business as usual as the Monarchs rolled to their 57th consecutive win over the past two seasons with a hard-fought 62-58 victory in front of 4,393 fans in the Los Angeles Sports Arena.

The victory moves Mater Dei (28-0) into the section’s large-school title game for the fourth consecutive year. Mater Dei will meet Serra (23-4) at 8:45 on Saturday at the Sports Arena for the 5-A title.

Mater Dei, ranked second in the nation by USA Today, scored its 114th win under Coach Gary McKnight in the past four years. The Monarchs have beaten St. Bernard six times in seven meetings.

St. Bernard, which finished the year at 18-7, never led, but the Vikings came to within two points of the Monarchs on three occasions in the fourth quarter. The Vikings smelled an upset, but in the end, they were just another victim of the Monarchs.

LeRon Ellis, a 6-foot 10-inch center, made the key plays down the stretch to ensure the victory. Ellis scored 9 of his game-high 22 points in the last quarter when St. Bernard threatened.

“LeRon was very consistent the entire game,” McKnight said. “But this team plays the best as a team of the four I’ve coached at Mater Dei.

“Stu (Thomas) was just off, but if you can win with your big gun off, I figure you’re in good shape.”

Thomas, the Monarchs’ leading scorer this season with a 19.8 average, struggled to get eight points against the smaller Vikings. But Ellis was more than up to the task.

The Monarchs established their authority inside early as Ellis blocked St. Bernard’s first two shots.

“The problem for everyone is stopping Ellis,” said Jim McClune, St. Bernard coach. “He’s a defensive nightmare. He made a couple of soft shots from five or six feet that I didn’t know he could make.”

Despite the height disadvantage, the Vikings gave Mater Dei all it could handle. Guard Langston Daniels made two free throws with 2:42 left to move St. Bernard to within two points, 53-51, but it was the last time the Vikings were in the ballgame.

Ellis made a turnaround bank shot with 48 seconds left and then made two free throws with five seconds left to seal the win.

Mater Dei opened a 6-0 lead and expanded it to 14-5 at the end of the first quarter by making 7 of 12 field-goal attempts.

St. Bernard took only six shots in the first quarter as the Vikings found the going difficult against Mater Dei’s man-to-man defense. But David Whitmore got the Vikings going in the second quarter with two consecutive baskets.

The Vikings missed only three shots in the second quarter and trailed by only three points, 26-23, at halftime. Daniels’ three-point play with seven seconds remaining in the first half helped the Vikings get to within three points.

Mater Dei made only four field goals in the second quarter, and three of them came from sophomore reserve Kevin Rembert. The Monarchs were 11 of 22 from the field in the first half while St. Bernard was 9 of 16.