Notre Dame Takes Hard-Nosed Tack to Top La Canada

Monte Marcaccini was facing the end of his high school basketball career on Tuesday night at South Pasadena High.

But vanity was not about to get in the way. Neither was La Canada.

Marcaccini played the final three minutes of Notre Dame High’s 58-52 Division III-A semifinal victory against La Canada with a wad of cotton stuffed up his nose.

Attractive? No. Effective? Yes.

Marcaccini had slammed into La Canada’s Eric Sanchez moments earlier, and blood gushed from the Notre Dame star’s nose. The cotton stopped the bleeding and allowed Marcaccini to finish the game.

“I would have stuck a truck in there if that’s what it took,” said Marcaccini, who scored eight of his game-high 25 points in the fourth quarter.

“He stepped up,” teammate Ryan Stromsborg said. “That’s why he’s going to Indiana. Good players step up in the clutch.”

The Knights (23-6) advance to meet San Dimas (25-3), a 68-64 winner over Lompoc, in the Section championship game at 8 p.m. Friday at Cal Poly Pomona. Notre Dame also qualifies for the state Division III tournament, which begins on Tuesday.

In the first half, it looked as if La Canada, which has been without 6-foot-11 center Richard Mandeville (broken ankle) since early January, was headed to Pomona to defend its III-A title from last year.

Notre Dame took an 8-3 lead, but the Spartans (22-6) made six consecutive three-point shots to finish the first quarter with a 24-14 lead.

“We came out fast and thought the game was going to be easy,” Notre Dame Coach Mick Cady said. “Then they got on fire and started making everything. Our guys looked lost.”

The Knights played the Spartans even in the second quarter to go into the locker room down, 36-27.

“Our team was down (at halftime), but we knew they couldn’t keep hitting everything,” Marcaccini said.

Notre Dame pulled to within 41-39 with 2 minutes 52 seconds to play in the third quarter on back-to-back three-point plays by Marcaccini, igniting the Knight fans.

Marcaccini hit a short jumper with 4:08 to play in the game that gave Notre Dame a 49-48 lead, its first since the game’s opening minutes. Moments later, the blood started gushing.

After he returned to the game from getting his nose plugged on the bench, Marcaccini made a layup off a pass from Craig Johnson, who saved the ball from going out of bounds, giving Notre Dame a 52-50 lead with 1:54 remaining.

The Knights made six of seven free throws in the final minute to seal the victory.