Mater Dei's Rex Pflueger wins MPHC slam dunk contest in spectacular fashion

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — Mater Dei (Santa Ana, Calif.) senior Rex Pflueger remembers the first time he dunked in a basketball game. It was in the summer before his eighth grade year for an AAU team.

"I was going in on a fastbreak," Pflueger said. "I was going crazy after I did it, but we were losing, so my coach was mad at me. I was like, 'C'mon man. Seventh-grade dunker? C'mon.' "

No one was upset with Pflueger Saturday night when he brought down the house with a series of spectacular jams that made him the easy winner of the 2014 MaxPreps Holiday Classic dunk contest before about 2,000 frenzied fans at Rancho Mirage (Calif.).

Pflueger, a 6-foot-6 senior guard who is headed to Notre Dame, had perfect scores in the semifinal round and added a 93 (out of 100) in two dunks during the finals. 

"This is even better," Pflueger said of winning Saturday's contest compared to his very first dunk. "This is very special to me. To come out and represent my school and come out with a victory is great."

Two friends helped in the semifinals. First, Pflueger jumped over KJ Smith and sent down an empathic one-hander. Then another classmate Pierre Aguirre sent a pass from at the top of the stands that bounced once perfectly at the rim.

Pflueger, who has a vertical jump of 34 inches from a standing start, easily jammed it down. Remarkably, Pflueger said, he and Aguirre rarely worked on it.

"We don't practice it at all," Pflueger said. "I just asked him if he could throw this pass and he said, 'yeah.'  It turned out to be pretty good.. The first one was a little shaky but the second one was perfect."

His best dunk of the night came when he dribbled through his legs before wrapping the ball threw his legs, then hoisted the ball off the backboard and one-handed it home.

"I stole it from LeBron (James)," Pflueger said. "I remember last year he did that in warm-ups and it went crazy all over the Internet. And I thought: 'hey that doesn't look too hard. I think I could do that.' So I thought I'd incorporate it into the dunk."

Pflueger, who scored 15 points in his team's quarterfinal win over Moreau Catholic (Hayward, Calif.), has always dreamed about being a mad dunker. He finished third at the City of Palms Tournament last week.

"I remember dunking as a little kid and I told myself if I'm going to be able to dunk, I'm going to dunk it," he said. " I'm going to dunk it as well as I can."

He did on Saturday, helping him outshine a talented group of finalists, which included runner-up Earnie Sears Alemany (Mission Hills, Calif.). Roberto Gittens (Foss-Tacoma, Wash.) and Ountae Campbell (Brentwood School-Los Angeles, Calif.).