mater dei v. dana hills

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Dynasties Are Done Everywhere:
Mater Dei Loses In League--(January 17, 1998)

This has been a really interesting two weeks in SoCal high school basketball. Several of the "top" teams have lost, notably Simi Valley to Newbury Park, Harvard Westlake twice (to Loyola and to Chaminade), Brea Olinda to Magnolia, and now Mater Dei.

Friday night Dana Hills accomplished what no other team had been able to do for 71 previous South Coast League games.

They beat Mater Dei. It was "sort of" a home game, even though it was played at the UCI Bren Events Center.

The score: Dana Hills 53, Mater Dei 46. Not exactly a high scoring game, but just the type of controlled tempo which Dan Hills needed to win.

With the loss Mater Dei drops to 10-5 on the season, and 2-1 in league play for the first time in almost seven years. Their last loss was in 1991, when Mater Dei played in the Angelus League, in a loss to Servite. Before that they had gone 90 games without losing a league contest. This truly was a rarity. But for Mater Dei fans, it may be something they have to get used to. At least for a while.

Mater Dei coach Gary McKnight had long said that this was his most "beatable" team in years. And even though Mater Dei had lost a few (5 actually) prior to the start of league play in exhibition and tournament games, no one really expected that Mater Dei would lose a league game this season, and certainly not to Dana Hills. As Gary McKnight said after the game last night, "They played harder than we did. At times we got soft, and Mark Thornton is a very good coach. But when you're a young team like we are, you're going to make mistakes, and we just made too many tonight."

Dana Hills senior forward Todd Pittman scored 17 of his game-high 26 points in the second half to help the Dana Hills Dolphins, who are now 10-9 over all and undefeated in League play at 3-0, regain a six-point half-time deficit. Dana Hills Coach Mark Thornton, whose team now has won four in a row after a 6-9 start, said the Dolphins' size, strength and second-half composure was critical in the win. "In the first half we looked like freshmen instead of seniors," Thornton said. "We just told them to settle down and do the things we can. We played some pretty good defense to hold that team to only 46 points."

The Dolphins' defense was indeed key in the game, and they forced 24 Mater Dei turnovers and also grabbed 19 steals from Mater Dei. Mater Dei also simply lost because they shot miserably, making only 13 of 47 shots. Given that performance, McKnight was correct: There was no way they could win. Dana Hills took a 50-42 with two minutes to play, and just never even looked back and they were never threatened.

Dolphins center Tim McKee set the early defensive mood, blocking the first three Monarch shots, which just sent the Dan Hills partisans into a frenzy. Unfortunately for Mater Dei, that frenzy came at their expense, and they never recovered.

The only bright spot for Mater Dei was that Dana Hills got into some foul trouble, and sent Mater Dei to the line 25 times, and they hit on 11 of those attempts in the first half, and another 7 in the second half, to go 18 for 25 from the line in the game, and at one point Mater Dei actually led by 10, 24-14 late in the second quarter. But then Dana Hills Pittman hit two quick baskets to close the gap to 24-18 at the half, then scored four of Dana Hills' first six points to open the second half. Dana Hills, which made 14 of 21 shots in the second half after going eight for 25 in the first half, outscored Mater Dei, 18-9, in the third quarter to take the lead for good, 36-33. For Mater Dei, Derrick Mansell and Mike Bayer each scored 10 points for Mater Dei. Bayer also had a game-high 14 rebounds.

As we said of Harvard-Westlake, and as we will undoubtedly say about others this year, the king is dead, long live the king. But then it's still pretty early in the season, and Mater Dei will have plenty of time to show us what they're really made of. We're guessing that they won't just crawl away in defeat, but will come back better than ever.

If it's a Gary McKnight team, you can bet on it.