Rivalry Fizzles as Mater Dei Sizzles in 63-48 Victory : Lewis Scores 28 Points as Monarchs Improve to 15-0

Mater Dei High School sure knows how to take the fun out of a basketball game.

Friday night’s nonleague contest against Long Beach Poly seemed to have the perfect ingredients for an exciting and entertaining affair.

But the Monarchs took away all the suspense by building a 13-point lead in the second quarter and cruising to a 63-48 victory in front of an estimated 3,000 fans in the Long Beach Sports Arena.

The Monarchs and Jackrabbits have met in each of the previous two Southern Section 4-A championship games, developing quite a rivalry in the process.

Mater Dei defeated Long Beach Poly, 60-44, for the 1983 championship, but the Jackrabbits came back last year to post a thrilling, 45-44, overtime victory over the favored Monarchs.

But while the Monarchs returned two starters from last year, forwards Tom Lewis and Mike Mitchell, and are off to a 15-0 start, the Jackrabbits lost their entire starting five and are struggling.

Long Beach Poly is 7-6 under first-year Coach Chris Kinder. That’s as many losses as former Jackrabbit Coach Ron Palmer (who is at Cal State Long Beach) had in the past two years. Poly is an inexperienced team, and it showed Friday night.

They could not sustain a consistent scoring attack against the Monarchs because of poor shot selection. Poly took most of its shots from the 20- to 25-foot range, and, as a result, made just 19 of 51 attempts for 37%.

Mater Dei was led by Lewis, who finished with a game-high 28 points, including 11 in the first quarter and 8 in the fourth.

Lewis scored 14 of those points on free throws and spent much of the second half picking himself up from the floor after being on the receiving end of numerous brutal fouls.

“They just ripped Tom,” Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight said. “He shoots a lot of free throws for it, but they hammered him. He gets pretty beat up, and it takes its toll. His elbow has been swelling up after every game, and it’s been drained (of fluid) a few times.”

On the night, Mater Dei went to the free throw line 33 times and made 23 of those. Stuart Thomas added 13 points for the Monarchs and Mitchell had 12.

Mater Dei has an eight-day break before it begins Angelus League play and has a good shot at entering the playoffs this year with a 25-0 record. The Monarchs aren’t expected to be challenged in their league.

“There’s been a lot of No. 1 teams who have lost, but we’ve done a good job of not faltering so far this year,” McKnight said. “We’ve beaten all the teams in last year’s Final Four--Verbum Dei, St. Bernards and Long Beach Poly--and we’ve beaten a good Santa Clara team twice. The kids have responded well.”

Long Beach Poly, which has won 12 CIF Southern Section championships in its illustrious history, has a ways to go before it returns to the level of success it has enjoyed in the past. But Kinder is realistic.

“This isn’t discouraging at all,” he said. “We had no starters returning, and each time we’ve lost, we’ve learned some valuable lessons. We’ve lost to some good teams (Serra, Ocean View, Cleveland of L.A., Glendale, Dominguez and Mater Dei). People try to compare us to last year’s team, but we’re not even close.”

Friday night’s game was a far cry from last year’s championship game, which Poly won when Vince Camper scored with 41 seconds remaining in overtime. Camper had just three points in this year’s edition, while the Jackrabbits were led by Demond Cooper’s 12 points.

Poly made only one serious run at Mater Dei--in the third quarter--when Mike Smith’s tip-in cut the Monarch lead to 36-30. But Mitchell came back with a layup and Lewis followed with a jumper to put Mater up by 10 points.

The teams were tied, 8-8, in the first period until Mater Dei reeled off nine straight points, five of them by Lewis, to close the quarter with a 17-8 lead. The Monarchs increased the lead to 13 (27-14) in the second period after Lewis’ two free throws and Mitchell’s follow shot.