Sundevils Advance to Final

For the new year, Mt. Carmel has resolved to get radical. Not that the Sundevils need to change a thing.

What the Sundevils boys’ basketball team is doing seems to work just fine, as they demonstrated Friday night in the semifinal of the Mt. Carmel Invitational, where the host team dispensed with Monte Vista, 55-52 and advanced to tonight’s championship against Concord De La Salle.

“We’ve been playing pretty conservative, but I think we’re going to start going for it,” said senior center Robert Treahy, who led Mt. Carmel with 14 points.

Mt. Carmel can go for it as soon as it wishes, but it won’t be a 100% effort until next week, when the Sundevils get leading scorer Scott Schoenwald back.

Schoenwald, a 6-6 center who was averaging 14.4 points a game, has been out all week with bronchitis.

“We hope to get him back by Wednesday,” said Mt. Carmel Coach John Marincovich. “But we’ve done a good job of filling in.”

Picking up the slack were Treahy, who was playing volleyball at this time last year and a handful of other contributors, including Danny Kirby (seven points), Aaron Harmon (four points) and Jason Sammons (10 points), who combine to make Mt. Carmel (7-3) a relatively young team.

“I’m so proud of these guys,” Marincovich said. “These will be the kind of team you want it to be when it peaks.”

In Friday’s game, that came with 5:45 remaining. After trailing Mt. Carmel all game, Monte Vista (10-1) took a 47-43 lead with just over six minutes remaining on two free throws by Matt Ehlke (10 points) and a layup by Paul Watson (12 points).

The Monarchs seldom were heard from again. Mt. Carmel scored the next 10 points to make it 53-47 with 2:10 remaining: Treahy started it off a 5:45 with a basket off an offensive rebound, Chris Goode put in two turnaround jumpers, Kirby scored on a 16-footer and Treahy scored again, on a layup.

“We found the guys we wanted to get the ball to and we were able to execute,” Marincovich said. “Those were really important.”

While Mt. Carmel was getting it together, Monte Vista was fall apart.

Said Monte Vista Coach Zach Peck: “We were up by four and we just dropped. I think we just got tired. And we had a couple of bad turnovers there at the end.”

Monte Vista was able to pull to 53-52 with 27 seconds left but turned the ball over with 20 seconds left.

Treahy sank both ends of a one-and-one with 17 seconds left for the final margin.

Marty Ellis led the Monarchs with 17 points. Aaron Elliott and Ehlke, who got into foul trouble late in the third quarter and didn’t play again until the fourth quarter, were held to season lows. Elliott had 11 points; Ehlke scord 10. Watson added 12 points.

“They did the thing they had to,” Pack said. “We didn’t. But this was a good game for us. We played a good team and we played hard. Most teams don’t learn a thing when they lose, but we did.”

In other Mt. Carmel games:

Concord De La Salle 63, Serra 42--The Conquistadors (5-3) were no match for the Bay Area power, which got 19 points from Joe McLean and 17 from Matt Clay to advance to tonight’s final. Serra, which got 14 points from Tony Etheridge, was outscored in the second half, 33-19.

San Pasqual 55, USDHS 51--David Durst made four three-point baskets and finished with 20 points as San Pasqual advanced to tonight’s consolation final. Billy Geddes added 12 for the Eagles. Trailing 38-27 at the half, USDHS made a 14-7 run in the third quarter, but the teams played to a 10-10 tie in the fourth quarter. Jerry Prior led the Dons with 11 points.

Madison 73, Burbank 70--Madison (6-6), which led by eight at halftime, held off Burbank in the second half. The Warhawks got 23 points from Donnie Collins and 18 from Matt Baker. Ken Vudmaska paced Burbank (3-7) with 23 points.