Season-High 35 by Black Leaves Cathedral in Red

Cathedral High basketball Coach Tim Guy was seeing black Friday night at Chaminade.

Every time Guy looked out onto the court, all he could see was Chaminade’s 6-7 senior center Kevin Black dominating the game.

Black, who sat out the past two games with a sprained ankle, scored a season-high 35 points to disrupt Cathedral’s fast-break offense and give Chaminade a Santa Fe League victory over Cathedral, 82-61. Chaminade (15-6, 11-1) defeated Cathedral by only two points earlier this season.

“They definitely made us play their game,” Guy said. “They fed Black a lot of passes inside and we were too slow.”

Chaminade Coach Mike Lynn admitted before the game that the only way his team was going to beat Cathedral was to keep the Phantoms from running.

“We had to control the tempo,” Lynn said afterward. “We didn’t want to get into a fast-break game with them. They’re quicker than we are.”

But thanks to Black, who also had a game-high 14 rebounds, Chaminade wound up running its own fast break and turned a close game into a rout.

“We had the opportunity to make a lot of layups,” Black said. “And we took it.”

Black, who blacked out Cathedral (13-8, 9-3) for most of the game, scored eight points in the first quarter as the Eagles jumped out to an 18-8 lead. Chaminade, however, suffered its own power outage after Black picked up his second foul in the quarter, sending him to the bench. Cathedral scored 11 straight points to take a 19-18 lead.

“A lot of our kids aren’t used to playing without him,” Lynn said about Black. “They’re not sure who they should pass the ball to.”

Black re-entered the game and added eight more points to give Chaminade a 35-33 halftime lead.