Centennial shoots its way to victory over Mission Hills

A storm passed through the Inland Empire on Monday, but it was still raining 3s inside Centennial’s gymnasium Tuesday evening.

The Centennial boys basketball team showed little rust from a 10day layoff between games, as the No. 6-seeded Huskies sank 15 of 22 shots from beyond the 3-point arc and cruised to a 77-58 victory over No. 11-seeded Mission Hills in CIF State Division I regional playoff opener.

Centennial (21-13) will make the trip to Santa Ana and face No. 3-seeded Mater Dei (27-5) in a second-round regional game tonight.

The Huskies went 0-3 in CIF Southern Section Open Division pool play and had last played a game Feb. 16 (a 61-56 loss to Sierra Canyon).

“We watched film, which is always hard when you lose because film doesn’t lie,” Centennial coach Josh Giles said about the team’s preparation for the state playoffs. “We then focused on having shorter but more efficient practices in order to clean up those mistakes we saw on film.”

Centennial knocked down 5 of 6 shots from distance to carve out a 17-14 lead after the opening quarter Tuesday. Isaiah Rogers drained a pair of those 3-pointers, while Carter Bryant, Eric Freeny and Justice Griffith each nailed one to help the Huskies get off to a fast start. The Huskies then opened the second quarter with a 15-0 run, including two 3-pointers from Jayden Yim and a third from Rogers.

Bryant, who was presented his Mcdonald’s All-american jersey last week, threw down a pair of thunderous dunks to help get that run started.

“The big thing for us was making sure that we were getting better every day,” said Bryant, who recorded a double-double with 22 points and 10 rebounds. “We had more than a week to prepare for this game, and we want to make sure we are executing at the highest level possible.”

Mission Hills senior sharpshooter Jacob Bishop made sure Centennial did not completely run away with the game in the first half, as he drained 3s on four straight possessions to get the Grizzlies

within 32-26. Bishop scored a game-high 34 points and made a school-record 10 3-pointers.

“I thought we made steady improvements in a lot of areas tonight, but there are some other areas we still need to get better,” Giles said.

Freeny, who is headed to UCLA, missed the past two games and played very few minutes in the pool-play opener against Harvard-westlake because of a variety of injuries. Freeny returned to action Tuesday evening and tallied six points and eight rebounds for the Huskies.

“It was great seeing him back out there. We wanted to play him a limited amount of minutes tonight before a really big game Thursday,” Giles said. “I think there was a little uncertainty at the very beginning of the game, but he came to me at halftime and said, ‘Coach, I’m good.’”

Yim, a freshman who starred on the JV team, provided big boost off the bench for Centennial, scoring 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting from 3-point range. Yim nailed 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions at the start of the fourth period to help the Huskies extend their lead to 22 points.

Centennial led by as many as 27 points, but Bishop continued to hit 3s, the final one coming from near midcourt to break the school record.

Rogers finished with 16 points and five rebounds, and CJ Richardson added another 11 points off the bench for the Huskies.