Mater Dei Wins Its Fifth Section Title in a Row

It was business as usual for Mater Dei Saturday night at the Southern Section Division I-A boys’ basketball championships at the Pond.

Mike Vukovich, Kevin Augustine and Tom Lippold scored 13 points each to lead the Monarchs past Glendora, 57-47, for their fifth consecutive section title and 11th in the past 14 years. It marked the 25th consecutive section playoff victory for Mater Dei.

The Monarchs (32-1) took care of this one early, as they have many of their games during their championship run. They made 11 of 19 field goals in the first half on their way to a 27-18 halftime lead and extended their advantage to 41-26 at the end of three quarters.

Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight, after seeing films of Glendora, felt that if the Monarchs could contain guards Josh Giles and Casey Jacobsen, they could win.

“About 60 or 70% of their points come from those guys,” McKnight said. “So we knew we had to stop them.”

Giles, who was hounded by David Castleton, finished with 15 points. Giles made only one of eight three-point attempts, his forte, and pounded the wood floor of the arena in disgust when the game ended. Glendora finished at 25-6.

Jacobsen, a freshman, had 11 points on five-of-10 shooting.

Glendora opened up on defense with an extended zone, and Mater Dei took advantage of it.

“We were able to penetrate it, get inside and score,” Augustine said.

The Monarchs never needed to run to get by the Tartans, they just worked for good shots. Glendora finally had to abandon the zone in favor of a man-to-man, which paid dividends late in the game. But too late.

It got scary only briefly for Mater Dei, and that was in the fourth quarter, just as some of the announced crowd of 11,354--third largest in section history--was heading to the exits.

Glendora got within six points twice, the last time at 47-41 with three minutes three seconds to play.

But on the next play, Lippold took a pass from Vukovich as Glendora defenders collapsed on the 6-9 center, and Lippold connected on a three-pointer to put Mater Dei back in control.

Giles made a pair of free throws, but then Augustine fed center Brad Williams with a beautiful pass and Williams scored on a layin.

After Mater Dei took its big lead, McKnight later said he felt he gave his players the wrong instructions.

“We got about a 14- or 15-point lead there and we told the kids to take some time off the clock,” McKnight said. “Then we missed a few free throws and that hurt us.”

McKnight used a timeout with about five minutes to go to remind the Monarchs to run their offense.

Augustine made four of seven field goal attempts but was saddled most of the second half with foul trouble.

“I was a little unhappy about that,” he sid. “I wanted to showcase more what I can do.”

Vukovich stepped up, though, and scored 11 of his 13 points in the second half. He added a game-high 10 rebounds. Williams had nine.

Mater Dei, using its superior height advantage, was able to go inside on the Tartans most of the first half.

Glendora, which made more than 35% of its three-point attempts this season, made just one of 10 in the first half and one of nine in the second.