Mater Dei Advances to Final by Beating Simi Valley, 56-43

Santa Ana Mater Dei played exceptional defense Tuesday night, particularly in the post area, and had little problem advancing to its eighth Southern Section boys’ basketball championship game of the decade.

But one wonders whether Simi Valley left something behind on the long freeway commute to UC Irvine.

Tentative during warmups, the Pioneers were even tighter in the opening quarter at the Bren Center, making four of their first 14 shots, while turning the ball over five times in the 56-43 loss to the second-seeded Monarchs in a Division I-A semifinal.

Mater Dei (30-3) will play defending champion Glendora at the Arrowhead Pond Saturday.

Simi Valley finished 28-3.

And this was not the way most figured the Pioneers would go out.

“We’ve played a lot of big games, but we came out flat tonight,” Simi Valley forward Brett Michel said. “I don’t know the explanation for it. We started out very sluggish.”

Try eight for 28 from the field in the first half with 12 turnovers.

“We wanted to be in the big game,” Pioneer Coach Dean Bradshaw said. “We had high expectations and when you have high expectations you will have big letdowns.”

Clearly, Bradshaw said, Mater Dei’s defensive pressure had a lot to do with Simi Valley’s foibles, a point that was well taken with Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight, who said he thought the Pioneers played like they were “in shell shock.”

“I don’t think they’ve seen that kind of defense,” McKnight said.

Mater Dei was playing without 6-foot-9 sophomore center Jamal Sampson. Forward Mike Bayer, who finished with 13 points but only three rebounds, has been slowed while recovering from mononucleosis, and swingman Cedric Bozeman, who figured to help out on a double-team on Simi Valley post Rafael Berumen, was out because of a knee injury.