St. Monica continues crusade

SAN MARINO — The St. Monica Academy boys’ basketball team is back to .500, and more importantly, back in the International League race after a 46-31 victory over league rival Southwestern Academy on Thursday afternoon.

“We’re in the upper half of this league — one of the three best,” Crusaders Coach Michael Muto said. “We had some tough defeats, but we played well these last couple of days and are improving.”

The win was the second in a row for the Crusaders (8-8 overall, 6-3 in league), who sit in third place in league behind La Verne Calvary Baptist (10-5, 5-1) and Le Lycee (7-1, 7-0).

The turning point in Thursday’s contest may have come in the third, as St. Monica won the eight-minute frame, 13-6.

The Crusaders led, 23-15, to start the second half and opened with a layup from senior Will Boles, who was fouled by Southwestern’s Michael Chen.

Boles sank his subsequent free throw to put St. Monica ahead by double-digits.

Ten seconds later, the Crusaders scored again when a steal by Blaise Inman translated into a layup from Gilbert Inman that put St. Monica ahead, 28-15.

To its credit, Southwestern (0-5 overall and in league) battled back with an offensive rebound and put back from Troy Ruan followed by a jumper from Jesse Du with 5:27 remaining that closed the Sun deficit to nine points.

Yet, Southwestern’s mini surge was countered by an 8-2 run that was capped by a layup from Blaise Inman with 1.4 seconds left that gave St. Monica a 36-21 advantage to close the quarter.

“They ran their pick-and-roll really well and we had our issues,” Southwestern assistant coach Michael Kohan said. “That’s St. Monica’s bread and butter and they ran it well.”

St. Monica opened with the first two baskets of the fourth quarter on an up-and-under layup from Boles that preceded another close range shot from Peter Goodwin, who was assisted by Boles, that propelled the Crusaders in front by 19 and virtually iced the game.

“I think we started to pull away because of our passing,” said Boles, who led all scorers with 14 points, six rebounds and four steals. “They did a great job of keeping it close, but then we started getting open.”

St. Monica jumped ahead, 7-3, at the two-minute mark of a slow first quarter, but received some push back from the Sun.

Du hit an impressive 15-foot turnaround jumper with a minute left before teammate Peter Feng drove through the key with 33 seconds left and was fouled while attempting a layup.

Even though Feng missed his field goal try, he hit two free throws to tie the score at 7 to close the first quarter.

With the score tied 9 with 7:15 in the second, the Crusaders opened up some breathing room via an 8-0 run in which they took the lead for good.

Blaise Inman added 12 points and Gilbert Inman contributed 10 points and eight rebounds for St. Monica.

Du paced Southwestern with 10 points and 12 rebounds.