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SoCalHoops High School & Prep News

Notes From The Mater Dei Shootout--(June 23, 1998)

Most of you know this already, but the ever-timely Frank Burlison reports in the Orange County Register today that "The window of opportunity that existed for teams in Orange County to knock off Mater Dei last season has now been slammed shut. The maturation of the underclassmen in the program last season, along with the addition of Mikey Strawberry and Jamal Sampson, has returned the Monarchs to the ranks of state championship contenders."

Mater Dei pretty easily defeated Glendora, which returns three starters, including one who most feel is the the top scoring threat and most highly recruited player, Casey Jacobsen, from a team that won the Southern Section Division I-A title in March. In the final game, Steve Scoggins of Mater Dei led with 16 points, while Jacobsen had 24 points. Jacobsen is rumored to be looking at Stanford, Duke and Cal among his top choices, but look for Stanford to some away with the prize if he fits into Mike Montgomery's summer plans for recruiting. Jacobsen played at the Cameron Center in Kentucky at the Bob Gibbons Tournament and was very impressed when he was there, however it's our view that if he gets an offer from either Duke or Stanford that he will probably take Stanfords, but that's just speculation at this point.

In the Mater Dei tourney, Jamal Sampson (6'-9" So. F/C) demonstrated that he will be a big factor for the Monarchs. Sampson a transfer from Westchester last year, where he didn't see much action playing behind senior David Bluthenthal could become a dominant high school center. Burlison however, reserved most of his praise for Strawberry:

"But the 6-3 Strawberry, who will be a freshman in September and is the nephew of Darryl Strawberry of the New York Yankees, was spectacular at times this past weekend. He's in the same class, athletically, as former Monarchs Reggie Geary and Schea Cotton."

Mikey has played for the Southern California All-Stars, and even though he's been with a younger team, expect to see him moved up to the older Southern California All-Stars traveling team where he should play alongside Jacobsen when Jacobsen is not playing for Dinos Trigonis' Belmont Shore team. .