MT. CARMEL TOURNAMENT : McLean Puts on a Show as De La Salle Routs Mt. Carmel

The height of Mt. Carmel High’s frontcourt players caused George Nessman some concern, but beating Nessman’s Concord De La Salle team is a pretty tall order in itself.

Too tall, in fact, for a Mt. Carmel front line that went 6-foot-6, 6-5, 6-5.

De La Salle, perennial participant in the state playoffs and currently ranked No. 7, scored an 82-40 boys’ basketball victory over the host team in the championship of the Mt. Carmel Invitational.

The loss prevented the Sundevils (7-4), who upset No. 3 Monte Vista in the semifinals, from winning their tournament for the first time since it debuted in 1986.

De La Salle (10-1) won behind the play of Joe McLean, a 6-foot-6 guard who has signed a letter of intent to play next year at Arizona.

Two of Mt. Carmel’s towers, Jason Sammons and Robert Treahy, said the victory over Monte Vista gave the team too much confidence. Believe it or not, they said, they took De La Salle too lightly.

Mt. Carmel Coach John Marincovich was more succinct.

“They’re just a good team and blew us away,” he said. “They were a lot more intense than us and we couldn’t execute against their defense, but they didn’t have any problem executing against ours.

“The whole game felt like the fourth quarter against Poway last year in the semifinals when we didn’t score.”

The Spartans, who employ a three-guard offense, took full advantage of McLean’s considerable talents and a solid defensive effort.

“We wanted to pressure the ball,” Nessman said. “We didn’t want them to get a good look inside (to Mt. Carmel’s post players), and I told them we needed to get a lot of deflections.”

They got them. Mt. Carmel committed 20 turnovers and had poor shot selection in the first quarter when De La Salle jumped to a 23-11 lead.

Mt. Carmel finished 10 of 25 from the field, but four of those field goals--three of them three-pointers--came in the fourth quarter. De La Salle made 26 of 50 from the field.

McLean, the tournament MVP, scored 36 points without playing the last 9 1/2 minutes of the game. By the time he left, his team led 63-22 and he had outscored Mt. Carmel himself.

The Sundevils got nine points from Danny Kirby and seven points from Aaron Harmon.

“I think it was a situation where we got up and Mt. Carmel kind of sagged,” Nessman said. “They’ve kind of had some sickness and, there you go, you have a 30-point game.”

The Sundevils played without 6-6 Scott Schoenwald, who has been out a week fighting bronchitis. Schoenwald has averaged 14.8 points per game and six rebounds.

Other games:

Monte Vista 72, Serra 46--Monte Vista (11-1) scored the first 10 points of the game and went on to clinch third place. Forward Marty Ellis scored 25 points and pulled down nine rebounds. Teammate Aaron Elliott added 23 points.

Madison 83, San Pasqual 42--Donnie Collins had several slam dunks for Madison and finished with a game-high 20 points in the fifth-place game.

USDHS 63, Burbank 62--USDHS (2-8) got two free throws from Jerry Prior with 25 seconds remaining to seal the victory in the seventh-place game. Sophomore reserve Scott Pharis scored 18.