CIF Basketball Friday notes: Solomon, Price make it look easy

BAKERSFIELD - Live slices from the CIF State Championships at Robobank Arena on Friday... 

Solomon mines gold for Price
The Division IV boys' game was a showcase for Price as the Knights scored a 69-51 victory, but really looked like a showcase for Richard Solomon, who has played second fiddle to Allen Crabbe during the season. Both are headed to California, and Golden Bears fans had to like what they saw. Solomon, a 6-9 forward, dunked, laid in when he could have dunked, and administered pain from long range. He was outstanding. In the third quarter, he had 16 points and St. Mary's, as a whole, had 25.

When he fouled out with 3:59 remaining, his head bounced up and down as if in constant agreement, as if acknowledging, “Yeah, I'm done, but so is St. Mary's.”

Then he and Crabbe had a moment before Solomon walked off the floor for the last time as a high school senior. He had 22 points and six rebounds. He made nine of 11 from the field, four of five from the free throw line.

When he was asked afterward, “Was it as easy as it looked,” Solomon answered succinctly.

“Yeah.”

He eventually expanded on the answer, but the one-word response really was sufficient.

If it's in print, it must be true
Price freshman Jaylen Woods got into the game in the final minute, along with senior Daryl Cooper. Woods is 5-5, about as big as Cooper's leg. When the game ended, Woods seemed at a loss. Everyone else celebrated, but the freshman clearly hadn't figured out the “unbridled joy” emotion. He got knocked in the back but a teammate jumping around, and after he retrieved the loose ball that had been thrown into the air at the buzzer. Finally, Wood was picked up and placed on the shoulder by Michael Vaultz.

But how big is Woods, really?

“They have me listed at 5-5” Woods said, “but really I'm 5-2½.”

And, for the record, he's 120 pounds.

Keep your focus
It was an innocuous question, but it seemed to strike a nerve with Price coach Michael Lynch.

Solomon was asked in the postgame press conference if any of his former teammates at Bishop Montgomery (Torrance) had texted him or reached out to him in the past week. Solomon, a transfer, had lost in last year's final at the buzzer.

It prompted Lynch to respond to the question as well: “This is about Price.”

Actually, it was about Solomon and his journey.

Emotional moment
The weekend will be filled with disappointment and tears, but the first game may have already provided the most emotional response. Demetrius Lee, a senior at St. Mary's was openly weeping in the press conference.

Lee's reaction may have been partly responsible for Coach Manny Nodar's response to the season as a whole: “In my 18 years of coaching, this was the most satisfying. I had 18 beautiful young men . . .who bought into what St. Mary's is about.”

Which game was he watching
Justin Pollard, a senior guard for St. Mary's who scored scored a team-high 18, had this to say of Price: “I'd like to say we're more athletic than they are. . .”

Official craziness
Mater Dei, arguably the No. 1 team in the country but currently ranked No. 2 in the Xcellent 25, scored a 58-43 victory over Carondelet in the Division II girls' championship, but the second half of the game completely lacked flow and denied fans the opportunity to see two of the game's best players.Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis 
 
Officials appeared to change the consistency with which they called fouls at the beginning of the second half, and it led to the eventual fouling out of some of the game's best players. Erica Payne, a 6-2 junior, was whistled for three fouls in less than a minute, including two with no time running off the clock that fouled her out of the contest with 5:53 left in the third quarter. Carondelet's height advantage was something the Cougars were hoping to exploit.

Junior guard Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis (Connecticut) went to the bench after getting her third and fourth fouls in the first 2:10 of the third quarter. Lewis reentered in the fourth quarter after Carondelet pulled to 39-31.Lewis scored five points, including a clutch three-pointer.

Neither coach was very happy about what happened. Lewis played only 19 minutes 56 seconds, Payne played only 18:07. Jordan Adams, Mater Dei's second-best player, played the final 5:43 with four fouls.

“I don't want to get in trouble, but I thought they were trying to take over and decide the game,” said Kiernan, whose team held a 34-17 halftime lead. “I know referees say they don't do that, but something changed. Maybe the teams got tired and they were legitimate fouls. The fouls were coming fast and quick and really didn't have anything to do with the game – it was a foul over there. I don't mean to criticize because I'm not supposed to do that, but the first half was really well officiated and the second was much tighter.”

Mater Dei was whistled for nine fouls in the first half, 13 in the second; Carondelet was whistled six times in the first half, eight in the second.

Momentum shift
Payne's exit from the game should have been detrimental to Carondelet, but instead it seemed to fire them up. Coupled with the absence of Lewis in the Mater Dei lineup, it made for easy pickings. Carondelet scored the final 11 points of the third quarter to close to 39-31, and the first two points of the fourth to get within 39-33.

“I got three fouls real quick, sat on the bench, but it's OK,” Payne said, who showed an impressive maturity in light of the situation. “I looked at my team, they stepped it up and played really hard. I couldn't be more proud of them.”

Backbreaker
Lewis returned to the lineup in the fourth quarter with four fouls and she scored five points in the first
2½ minutes, including a three-pointer behind Jessica Duarte's screen, all after Carondelet had pulled to within six points. Duarte also hit some big baskets in the last half of the fourth quarter; she scored seven of her 19 in that span.

But the biggest basket of the night may have belonged to Jordan Adams. She made a three-point basket with 4:23 left in the third quarter to extend Mater Dei's lead to 37-20.

“Jordan made that three . . . and we got a little bit of separation,” Kiernan said. “We weren't getting anything with that combination on the floor.”

Prior to Adams' shot, Mater Dei had gone 5:04 without a point and been outscored. In fact, Adams' basket was the only field goal in a span of 10:12 in which the Monarchs were outscored, 15-5.

Who's really No. 1?
Kiernan said he is “not one to lobby,” but when asked he did point out Mater Dei had beaten more great opponents than St. Mary's (Stockton), including St. Mary's, when the subject of being the national No. 1 team came up.

The happy coincidence
Mater Dei won its first state championship since 1996 in Kiernan's third year as coach. He had been to the state finals four consecutive years at Troy (Fullerton), winning three times, when he took the position at private school Mater Dei.

He said his mission was helped by the arrival of Lewis.

“Her mom went to Mater Dei,” Kiernan said. “It's a happy coincidence that we got to Mater Dei at the same time, more for me than for her.”

Straight from the playbook
Kiernan said, “It's called Play 36,” and the next time you have a chance to watch it, do. “We try to clear out a side and have her fall down.”

“Her” was Shayla Batson, who was under the basket when she tried to dish the ball to Duarte. Instead, the ball was deflected away. Batson leaned over to grab it and fell on her backside, where she shot the ball from the seat of her pants, off the glass.

Batson's only field goal gave Mater Dei a 55-41 lead with 1:09 remaining, and though it may not have been a make-or-break moment, it was certainly one that allowed everyone in the building with a Mater Dei rooting interest breathe a final sigh of relief.

Norman Powell is a 6-3 junior guard and Victor Dean a 6-7 senior forward wh would be perfectly at home on the same court as Westchester (Los Angeles), which is playing in the Division I final Saturday and is currently the No. 1 team in the state.

The Hornets play above the rim, shoot the three, and at one point Friday in their 74-59 victory over St. Francis (Mountain View), Dean twice dunked errant shots off the rim.”

It wasn't clear how many dunks Lincoln had, but the Hornets didn't get cheated by gravity.

“That's pretty normal for us,” Coach Jason Bryant said. “We like to play above the rim.”

Pivotal moment
Bryant said the moment that changed the season came early on, when the Hornets were beaten by Centennial (Compton), 87-68, in the Modesto Christian tournament.

“After we lost to Centennial, the light bulbt went on,” Bryant said. “We had a two-hour meeting, discussed what we needed to do, which was become a family.”

Since that time, Lincoln has won 24 in a row. It is San Diego's first Division II champion and the first title won above Division III.

It is the second state title for Lincoln, which won a Division III title in 1994. University of San Diego High, now called Cathedral, won in Division III in 1998; San Diego Horizon won three titles in Division IV.

Anti-San Diego bias
Bryant didn't think that his team received the respect it deserved from various ranking organizations, although San Diego's light performance at the highest level doesn't command the benefit of the doubt.

“Respect is earned,” Bryant said. “Hoover High has earned it. They've won big games. San Diego is overlooked, but hopefully we proved we deserve respect and deserve to be above the radar.”

Every second counts.
Bryant called timeout with 0.3 seconds left in the first quarter – a full timeout. He led 21-10 at the time. Tyrell Robinson inbounded to twin brother, Tyree Robinson, on the wing for a three-point shot; he didn't get it off in time, and it was blocked. Both Robinsons are freshmen.

“It was just a play I drew up,” Coach Jason Bryant said.

Blue collar effort
Sydney Haydel enjoyed a rare night in which she outscored teammate Nicole Hung in Harvard-Westlake's 58-44 victory over St. Mary's (Albany) in the Division IV championship.

Haydel scored a game-high 20, to Hung's 16 and Nicole Nesbit's 15.

St. Mary's coach Alan Koch said he doesn't believe that Haydel is Harvard-Westlake's best player, but was a crucal part of the equation: “I thought she was their most important player because she does all the dirty work . . . so that Hung can do what she does and Nesbit can do what she does.”

Says Haydel: “We all do a little bit.”

The rigors of coaching
Melissa Hearlihy, the coach at Harvard-Westlake, had hip replacement surgery in July, she said, “because of all the stomping I've done.”

She has coached 25 years, including the first 15 with Alemany (Mission Hills). This is her 10th season with Harvard-Westlake, and though she has always produced well coached teams – and she took H-W to the state finals in 1999 – this is her first championship.

She's going to Princeton
Merriam-Webster would be proud of Hung, who is headed to Princeton. “Maturity and team cohesiveness . . . has been a deciding factor,” Hung said.

How many basketball players have you heard use “cohesiveness” in a quote?

9 is a prime number
Harvard-Westlake had three different 9-0 runs in its victory over St. Mary's.

“We might have had five turnovers (in those separate spans),” Koch said. “We're getting empty trips. We rely heavily on our defense. They got buckets, and we couldn't.”

Mater Dei's first championship of the night
Mater Dei played the third game Friday, but the Monarchs can stake a claim in the championship won by the second game's winner, Harvard-Westlake.

The Wolverines are adamant that a loss to Mater Dei earlier this season – the only loss of the year – propelled them to this point.

“Our loss to Mater Dei, we felt we could compete better and after that we started to believe,” Hearlihy said. “At that time they were No. 1 in the country, we were close and then we made a couple of mistakes. We did a lot of maturing that day.”

“After that Mater Dei game, we talked about a state title and we didn't look back.”

In fact, it was even suggested by coach and player might even have been a loss to Mater Dei last season that first ignited the passion that helped spur the Wolverines to championship material.

Fruit of the loom
Carondelet wore T-shirts during warmups that read: “One Team, One Goal, One More.”

Political correctness
The mayor of Bakersfield came onto the floor before the Mater Dei-Carondelet game and mentioned how happy his city was to host the state finals. It was a nice touch. Totally political, but a nice touch nevertheless.