ANAHEIM – Only three players were able to make baskets for Mater Dei.
Fortunately for the Monarchs, one of them was Stanley Johnson.
Johnson scored 28 points, more than half of his team’s total, as Mater Dei beat Chino Hills, 48-44, in the CIF-Southern Section Open Division boys basketball championship game Saturday at Honda Center.
Mater Dei (31-0) won its 22nd CIF-SS boys basketball championship in Coach Gary McKnight’s 32nd season coaching the Monarchs. They begin playing in the state tournament next week in quest of a fourth consecutive state championship. No team has won four straight CIF boys basketball state titles.
The total of 48 points is Mater Dei’s second-lowest in a CIF-SS finals win. They scored 46 when they beat Glendora in a section championship game in 1999.
Mater Dei made 14 of its 44 shots, for 32 percent. The Monarchs were 1 for 14 on 3-pointers.
But that 3-pointer made was a huge one.
Chino Hills had a 40-38 lead midway through the fourth quarter. With the shot clock about to expire, Johnson launched a deep, high-arcing 3-pointer that went in and gave Monarchs a brief lead.
Chino Hills coach Steve Baik considered it the turning point of the game.
“Not only was it three points,” Baik said, “but it also changed the whole momentum. Had he missed that, we would have had momentum. Yeah, that was a big shot.”
Baik indicated that similarly large was Mater Dei’s free-throw advantage. The Monarchs shot 25 free throws and made 19 of them. Chino Hills took 13 free throws and made eight.
“Some calls that were not called and some were called for a certain team’s benefit,” Baik said.
Mater Dei benefitted from Johnson’s accuracy at the free-throw line in the fourth quarter. He was 6 for 6 on foul shots in the quarter. With Chino Hills ahead, 42-41, with 1:19 left, Johnson made two free throws to give the Monarchs a 43-42 lead.
Nineteen seconds later, Chino Hills’ Kenneth Cyprian made a layup thanks to a great backdoor pass from Lonzo Ball and the Huskies were back on top, 44-43. Johnson was fouled again with 41 seconds to go and again made two free throws to give the Monarchs a 45-44 lead.
Rex Pflueger’s free throw with 12 seconds to go made it 46-44. At the other end, Cyprian was fouled but, in the one-and-one situation, missed the first free throw. The rebound was tied up for a jump ball and the possession arrow gave the ball to Chino Hills with nine seconds left.
Ball missed a baseline 3-pointer, Johnson got the rebound and was fouled with four seconds to go. He made two free throws to clinch the Mater Dei win.
Johnson had a game-high 15 rebounds. Mater Dei 6-foot-10 sophomore MJ Cage had eight rebounds and five blocked shots.
As poor as Mater Dei’s shooting was, Chino Hills’ was worse. The Huskies made only 16 of 61 shots, for 26 percent.
Why the lousy shooting?
“I hope on their part it was because we played great defense,” McKnight said.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com