Mater Dei coach Gary McKnight this season will become the first in California boys basketball history to achieve 1,000 wins.
It could happen this week.
The Monarchs are in the Beach Bash Tournament at Corona del Mar. McKnight had 996 wins going into the tournament, which began Monday. All tournament teams will play five games.
The Beach Bash championship game is Saturday at 8:30 p.m. at Corona del Mar.
Jump stops around county basketball:
• There is an Oak Hills in the Beach Bash. But it’s not that Oak Hill Academy from Virginia, a school that has won several national championships and has produced some NBA players. This Oak Hills is from Hesperia, and has won three of its first four games.
• Foothill won the Jim Harris Memorial Tournament of Champions at Ocean View. The Knights beat Long Beach Millikan in the championship game, 74-66. Foothill’s Reed Nakakihara was tournament MVP, and the Knights’ Riley O’Hern and Eric Patton were all-tournament.
• Other county players who were TOC all-tournament: Alec Hickman and Dillon Kohler of JSerra, and Zarek Osborne and Zamier Kelly of Ocean View.
• El Toro defeated Godinez, 47-41, on Saturday in the championship game of the Godinez Grizzly Invitational. Justin Faison, an El Toro senior, was tournament MVP. Trey Jordan, a senior, and freshman Julian Bruce made the all-tournament team for the Chargers, who are 5-0.
• Other Godinez all-tournament players were Danny Flores, Ramon Lopez and Brandon Smith of Godinez; Vincent McFadden of San Juan Hills, Grant Vis of Huntington Beach, Isaac Douglass of Yorba Linda, Brad Belshe of Cypress, Michael Enis of Savanna, Elijah Mosham of El Dorado and Jared Ryu of Aliso Niguel, which beat Savanna, 65-59, in the third-place game of the Gold Bracket.
• Yorba Linda beat Cypress, 53-50, in the Silver Bracket of the Godinez tournament.
• Kevin Olsen played well for Villa Park in the Legacy Tipoff Classic in Las Vegas last week. Olsen, who signed with Army, scored 22 points as the Spartans beat Clark of Las Vegas, the No. 2 team in the Nevada state rankings, and scored 27 in a win over host school Legacy. Olsen and C.J Thomas made all-tournament for the Spartans who went 3-1 in the event.
• Santa Margarita is off to a 4-0 start. The Eagles won all four of their games in the Chick-fil-A Tipoff Classic, a first-year tournament at Crean Lutheran. There was no all-tournament team, but if there was then Santa Margarita coach Jeff Reinert’s top nominations for it from the Eagles would have been Scott Wesierski, Colin Ferrier and Jordan Guest.
• The North Orange County Championships begins next Monday. It is a 20-game tournament that includes Orange County preseason top 10 teams Canyon, Edison and host school Sonora. The pool-play schedule, which runs Monday through Dec. 17, is at ocvarsity.com.
• The Irvine World News/Gary Raya begins Monday. The 16-team tournament, played at various sites, includes El Toro, San Clemente and Tustin.
• San Clemente quarterback Sam Darnold could be playing basketball for the Tritons by this weekend. Darnold, who committed to USC for football, might be the best basketball player in the South Coast League.
• How the Coast View Conference divides its 10 boys basketball teams into its Sea View and South Coast leagues: Aliso Niguel, Dana Hills, El Toro, Mission Viejo and San Clemente are in the South Coast League; Capistrano Valley, Laguna Hills, San Juan Hills, Tesoro and Trabuco Hills are in the Sea View League.
• How the Century Conference divides its eight boys basketball teams into its Crestview and North Hills leagues: Canyon, Esperanza, Foothill and Villa Park are in the Crestview League; Brea Olinda, El Dorado, El Modena and Yorba Linda are in the North Hills League.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
