IRVINE – Crean Lutheran’s boys basketball team, after the longest postseason run in school history, finally met its match Friday night.
The fourth-seeded Saints led after one quarter, but fell to top-seeded Viewpoint of Calabasas, 63-52, in the semifinal round of the CIF-SS 4A playoffs in front of a capacity crowd at Crean Lutheran.
It was the first trip to the semifinals for Crean Lutheran, which is in its seventh year of varsity basketball.
“They’re really, really good,” Crean coach Josh Beaty said of Viewpoint. “Every time we would get it close, they would get two or three or four offensive rebounds and that just killed us.
“These kids played so hard; we just physically couldn’t secure rebounds. They were just that much more athletic than us. They battled until the end.”
Crean Lutheran (25-5) was also victimized by 16 turnovers.
Junior Michael Bagatourian led Crean Lutheran with 25 points. But Viewpoint (25-6) did not allow any other Saints to score in double figures.
Even Kittelsen added seven points for Crean Lutheran.
“They played great man defense, they pressured us and they took us out of what we were trying to do,” Beaty said. “Michael had his points, but they really did a good job against Michael, too.”
Viewpoint had a balanced scoring attack led by Michael Okparaocha and Aram Arslanian, who had 20 points each. Kody Knox added 12 points for the Patriots.
“They have a few really talented players,” Bagatourian said. “They played better than us; that’s all. I feel like we shocked them a little bit (at the beginning) but they’re a really good team and they came back.”
It was looking promising for Crean Lutheran in the early going.
With their boisterous home fans cheering them on, the Saints marched out to a 7-2 lead early on and led, 14-10, after one quarter. But Viewpoint moved out to a 20-19 lead when Arslanian made two free throws with 4:41 left in the second quarter.
Viewpoint held a 30-24 lead at halftime.
The Patriots kept rolling in the second half when they went on a 6-0 run at the start of the third quarter to break the game open.
Viewpoint led, 46-33, after three quarters and eventually moved out to a 50-35 lead with 5:50 remaining in the game.
Viewpoint moves on to the championship against LaSalle.
Contact the writer: tburt@ocregister.com
