Cruising to the top again

SCCS boys hoops heading to second CIF final in school history

A loaded class of transfers had the Santa Clarita Christian School as favorites to take home the CIF-Southern Section Division 5AAA title. The team will get a chance to make good on those predictions.

SCCS went on the road to beat Bloomington 79-54 on Friday night, advancing to the second CIF-SS final in school history.

The Cardinals lost to Renaissance Academy in the 2013 5AAA final, though, giving the team a shot at the school’s first ever CIF title.

“We had a little bit of adversity, with a lot of fouls called on us early, and we haven’t had to deal with that too much this year,” said SCCS coach James Mosley over the phone of the Bloomington game. “I was really proud with how they responded to that and didn’t let it take them out of their game.”

SCCS (20-9) will take on La Puente in the Division 5AAA final, with the time and location of the game still to be determined. The Cardinals will be playing in the final on either March 2 or 3, though.

Justin Collins led SCCS with 22 points and

Jordan Starr added 20 points, six assists and seven rebounds. Bloomington trailed by eight after the first quarter

but SCCS began to pull away in the second and entered halftime with a 40-25 lead.

“Jordan did a great job of getting us going and he’s been doing that all year,” Mosley said. “He was able to score for us

in a bunch of different ways and gets his teammates involved well.”

Bloomington (20-13) cut the Cardinals’ lead to 58-50 with 5:43 to play in the fourth quarter before they pulled away for the lopsided

win.

Kaleb Lowery grabbed a team-high eight rebounds to go with 12 points and Noah Veluzat was the final Cardinal to score in double digits, logging 10 points.