Mater Dei’s Hot Hand Brushes Off Jesuit, 84-51

Whether planned or not, Mater Dei, the host of Saturday’s Nike Extravaganza II basketball tournament, had the easiest game of the day, and the Monarchs ran with it.

Mater Dei (21-2) scored early and often in dispatching Carmichael Jesuit, 84-51, in front of an announced crowd of 3,500 at the Bren Center.

Showing no signs of fatigue from their 32-point victory Friday night over Mission Viejo in South Coast League play, the Monarchs outdistanced their Northern California neighbors with superior size and speed.

A torrid first half by Mater Dei--the Monarchs connected on 22 of 29 field-goal attempts--gave it a 24-9 first-quarter lead and a 48-21 lead at halftime. That pretty much reduced the final two quarters to garbage time.

Mater Dei finished at a robust 60.7% from the field, making 34 of 56 shots.

“I was expecting a war tonight,” Monarch Coach Gary McKnight said. “They are the No. 3-ranked team in Northern California, and they took [Los Angeles] Crenshaw to double overtime during a tournament in San Diego. But when you shoot 76% [in the first quarter], it’s pretty hard to get beat.

“I’m real proud of them,” McKnight said. “We said we wanted a real big defensive effort this week, and wind up blowing two teams out of the water.”

Mater Dei senior guard Kevin Augustine, nine of 12 from the field, led all scorers with 22 points while distributing five assists. He was followed by Tom Lippold with 20 and Mike Vukovich with 12.

Matt Clifford paced Jesuit (16-4) with 17.

“We expected they would be pretty good,” Augustine said. “But we came out ready to play, and I think we kind of surprised them with our fast start.”

Added Lippold: “As we kept getting clean rebounds on the defensive end, we knew we could run at will.”

Jesuit made only 21 of its 58 field-goal attempts and was beaten on the boards, 42-16. Jesuit also played Friday night (against Sacramento Johnson) and flew down Saturday for the game.

Coach Hank Meyer joked that “our game looked like it was still 30,000 feet in the sky,” but he did not want to use travel as an excuse.

“Nobody wants to travel the day of the game, but that’s what we had to do,” he said. “But give them the credit. They played very well and we didn’t have a good game.

“I feel bad for those fans of ours who came down to watch this.”

After getting off to an 8-0 start, the Monarchs saw the Marauders draw to within 10-7. Mater Dei then went on a 16-2 run.

The lead increased to as many as 41 points in the second half (77-36) before McKnight started clearing his bench midway through the fourth quarter.

In another game:

Mouth of Wilson (Va.) Oak Hill Academy 76, Compton Dominguez 65--Oak Hill Academy used a stifling 2-3 zone and the hot hand of senior guard William Avery (26 points) to end Dominguez’s six-game winning streak.

The Warriors (19-3) brought only eight players with them from Virginia but still held the Dons (17-5) to 26-of-69 shooting from the field, including only two of 20 from three-point range.

Dominguez couldn’t help itself from the line either, missing 15 of 26 free throws. Oak Hill, which missed only five of 20 shots in the first half, made 31 of 47 from the field for the game.