Cerritos Valley Christian has enough to pull away

What began as the Southern Section Division IV-A championship game Friday night turned into a lay-up drill.

Top-seeded Cerritos Valley Christian poked holes in the interior defense of second-seeded Twentynine Palms during the second half and pulled away in the last seven minutes to win, 60-45, at Ontario Colony High.

Jeff Rochon, a 6-foot-6 senior forward, had 20 points and seven rebounds, and Blake De Jong and Kurtis Korver scored 12 each for the Crusaders (27-3). Coach Bryan Branderhorst was most impressed with the eight assists by senior point guard Alex Lopez, most of which were earned on layups.

“He was finding people tonight,” Branderhorst said. “He was throwing darts and the posts were doing a good job. We tell them to get sneaky on the baseline and kind of hide back there.”

Montreal Harris was the only player in double figures for Twentynine Palms (26-4) with 16 points.

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Rosamond 51, St. Bonaventure 44 -- The Roadrunners scored the game’s last seven points to win the Division V-A title at Colony High.

Top-seeded Rosamond (25-5), which won the program’s first section title, was hardly perfect from the free-throw line for most of the game, missing 11 of 16 attempts before senior Jerime Gorse made five of six in the last 2:31 to provide the winning margin. Gorse also had a key steal with 47 seconds remaining.

Donte Day scored 17 points to lead the Roadrunners. Bo Mesick scored 13 to lead the second-seeded Seraphs (15-15), who led by 12 points late in the first half but went scoreless the final 4:32 of the game.

“It just comes down to making plays,” Tim Atkerson said. “There comes a time when you just have to play perfect.”

-- Dan Arritt