Notre Dame gets spark from Miller in victory
SHERMAN OAKS » There were 10 players on the court at the start of the CIF State Division I Regional semifinal boys basketball game between Notre Dame and Mater Dei at Notre Dame High School.
But there was only one player who stole the show Saturday night and helped lead his team to the regional final, and that was Mercy Miller.
The junior guard displayed every weapon in his arsenal, knocking down 3-pointers, getting to the paint and making tough shots, while displaying a smooth transition game and shooting a perfect 9 for 9 from the free-throw line.
He scored eight of the Knights’ first 12 points and half of the team’s points in the first half, finishing with a game-high 28 points in Notre Dame’s 81-59 victory over Mater Dei.
“My last game I came out kind of slow and sluggish,” Miller said, “so I made it a goal myself and with my coaches that I’m going to come out strong and with energy to help us get to the next round and go for the state championship.”
While Miller paced Notre Dame in the first half, teammates Caleb Foster and Dusty Stromer got in on the action in the second half, scoring a combined 34 points. Foster made four 3-pointers and Stromer added two to go along with Miller’s three made shots from distance.
“I agree with that one,” Miller said when asked if the trio of he, Foster and Stromer make up the best threesome in the state. “We just all love the game and love playing with each other. We’re a family, so when guys like that enjoy playing with each other big things can happen.”
The 22-point win didn’t represent the first three quarters of the game, which saw the teams battling back and forth in a tight contest.
Mater Dei took a 46-41 point lead midway through the third quarter, leading Notre Dame head coach Matt Sargeant to take a much-needed timeout.
From that point on, Notre Dame’s defense locked in while the offense continued to thrive. Notre Dame outscored Mater Dei 40-13 the rest of the way.
“We played the hardest schedule of any high school team in the country,” Sargeant said. “We played those games so in those moments we know what it feels like to take it to up another level. We’ve had to over and over again. Call a timeout, they know what the deal is. They know they have to get three stops in a row and they got more than three stops in a row.”
The Knights will face Sierra Canyon in the regional final on Tuesday. Sierra Canyon defeated Bishop Montgomery 64-47 in the other regional semifinal Saturday.
Notre Dame has faced Sierra Canyon three times this season, beating the Traiblazers by four points, 27 points and 17 points.
Nonetheless, the Knights won’t look past Tuesday night’s contest.
“The past game doesn’t matter. If you feel like it does, you’re setting yourself up for failure,” Sargeant said. “We feel we didn’t play well enough the last time, we need to be better this time around. We’re trying to get to a certain level of how we want to play. It’s worked so far but we got one more to go.”
TORRANCE » After the first meeting between the Sierra Canyon and Bishop Montgomery boys basketball teams, Saturday’s clash could have gone either way.
In the second round of the CIF Southern Section Open Division playoffs, played at Bishop Montgomery, the Knights escaped with a two-point win in a game decided by a late Christian Jones basket.
On Saturday, with a berth in the CIF SoCal Regional Division I final on the line, any suspense was gone midway through the second quarter.
The third-seeded Trailblazers (23-10) opened the second quarter on a 14-2 run and never looked back.
In the end, Sierra Canyon left town with a 64-47 win over second-seeded Bishop Montgomery (28-5).
Sierra Canyon will face Notre Dame, the top seed, in the regional final Tuesday. This is the fifth appearance in six seasons for Sierra Canyon. Sierra Canyon and Notre Dame have played three times this season with Notre Dame winning all three games.
“Defensively, we were locked in,” Sierra Canyon coach Andre Chevalier said. “We had the opportunity to play them before and we kind of knew what their game plan was going to be. Their No. 24 (Xavier Edmonds) is a big part of what they do, so we tried to do everything we could to slow him down and hope they didn’t make 3s and that helped us a lot.”
Edmonds scored just two free throws and fouled out in the fourth quarter.
In the early stages of the game, the deep ball wasn’t falling for Bishop Montgomery, but several attempts seem to spin out of the rim,