Ellis Says ’87 Monarchs Were Better Than This Year’s Team

LeRon Ellis says the Mater Dei High team he led to the 1987 boys’ State Division I title would have easily beaten this year’s squad, which lost by 22 points to Alameda St. Joseph in the championship game.

“We had a better inside attack,” said Ellis, who was the state’s player of the year as the Monarchs finished 31-1 that season. “I think that’s what killed them in the State championship. They didn’t have an inside game going. We had an inside and outside attack.”

Gary McKnight, Mater Dei’s coach then and now, was more diplomatic.

“It seems like every CIF championship team I have thinks it will kill each other, so I’m going to pull a John Wooden and not compare my teams,” McKnight said. “But I’ll tell you this, we didn’t have a center this year, we had two forwards playing the post, so he would have presented a lot of problems for us.”