Servite’s Jake Shutt drives to the baseline against Los Alamitos junior Owen Chung Saturday at Mater Dei. (Photos courtesy John Luciano, For OC Sports Zone).
Servite’s boys basketball team took the floor with added incentive Saturday afternoon against Los Alamitos in the Nike Extravaganza at Mater Dei.
The Friars, with the CIF playoff selections a couple weeks ago, wanted to make a strong impression. They certainly did defeating Los Alamitos 69-56 at Mater Dei.
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Tariq Johnson scored 25 points and had four assists and Jake Schutt and Carlos Galvan scored 14 points each to lead Servite (18-8). Schutt also had a game-high 15 rebounds.
Coach Matt Kanne’s Servite team has dropped its first three games in the challenging Trinity League so their path to the CIF playoffs may end up being as an at-large team.
“We needed it, it was a gritty victory, one that with the heart of the Trinity League schedule, it’s a really tough league, so it’s nice to just get out of it,” Kanne said. “Los Al is a great basketball team, this is not a knock on them, we know they’re a really good team and they will speed you up but I thought our guys just really locked in at practice getting ready for it in shoot around.
“They came in and they took care of the basketball and managed the pressure and competed on both ends of the floor, they moved the ball, led by Jake our senior, he’s our heart and soul. He dominated the boards, he was great in transition, was great around the rim and made some shots and other players stepped up too, so it was just a team victory, one that we needed to get to 18 wins, have a signature win that hopefully puts us over the hump for the playoffs.”
Servite still has two more Trinity League games left against JSerra Wednesday and St. John Bosco Friday. Then the Friars and the rest of the league teams will compete in the Trinity League tournament.
Then, CIF playoff pairings will be announced.
“We like our body or work, 18 wins is the most in the program since 2004,” Kanne said. “We think that beating Cypress, beating La Habra, and going outside the county, St. Anthony and Loyola, Rolling Hills Prep, not only is 18 wins at this stage a pretty good number but we also think those are a collection of signature wins, but we’re hoping that …. whatever it is (to determine playoffs) I’m confident that we should be in a good spot with it but know there are a lot of good teams also eager to push through the rest of the season.
“Hopefully we can make a run at JSerra Wednesday and then gear up for the Trinity League Tournament.”
Servite led 19-17 after one quarter then outscored Los Alamitos 16-3 in the second quarter to break the game open and take a 35-20 lead at haltime. Servite held a 55-35 lead after three quarters.
The Friars made 52 percent of their field goal attempts while Los Alamitos connected on 38 percent.
Riley Bowers, who scored 15 points, led Los Alamitos. Ethan Lee added 11 points for the Griffins (15-9). Los Alamitos outrebounded Servite 36-24.
The 6-4 Schutt said the Friars had an excellent practice Friday and shoot-around Saturday in preparation for the game. Schutt made 5 of 12 fielkd goal attempts.
“We were locked down in what we did,” Schutt said. “We went over it, we knew Los Al’s game, we prepared for them and we executed against today. We’ve been itching for this one since the summer. We played them in the summer and they got us, but we were ready for them this season.
“I think it’s a huge win, as coach said, it’s the first time Servite has gotten 18 wins since 2004, that’s a big-time thing. I don’t know if that will put us D1 or where it will put us, but we’re going to make a run for sure.”
Hugh Hannon added nine points for Servite.
Coach Nate Berger’s Los Alamitos team was coming off a 64-57 victory over Huntington Beach Friday night. The Griffins are in second place in the Sunset League.
—-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone
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