SHERMAN OAKS — After Notre Dame junior Dylan Northcutt banked in a long 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer Tuesday night, he jumped into the arms of his teammates to celebrate and the team’s fans erupted into cheers.
The improbable basket gave the Knights a five-point lead heading into halftime.
The Knights used that momentum to beat St. John Bosco 69-60 in the second game of pool play for each team in the CIF-SS Open Division playoffs.
The Knights improved to 2-0 in their pool games and earned the right to move on to the next round.
“Every day we do a free-throw game,” Notre Dame head coach Matt Sargeant said. “If they finish it, they shoot half-court shots. It’s a reward. So we practice those. So I smiled when (Northcutt) made it, because he almost was the one to make it today.”
For the Braves (20-9), senior Christian Collins has been the motor of the team’s offense all season. Against the Knights, he didn’t change, leading his team with 24 points.
He put effort into the defensive end as well, flying through the air to block shots and making plays wherever he could.
No one else on the Braves consistently found scoring opportunities, and perimeter shots were hard to come by for his teammates.
The Braves finished the game with eight 3-pointers made to Notre Dame’s six. Not a big disparity, but one that easily could’ve been a lot wider.
“We’ve struggled offensively the last three weeks,” Braves coach Matt Dunn said. “I thought we had a lot of wide open shots, especially in the first half, and didn’t make any of them … We didn’t play very good basketball in the second half, but our guys played really hard. We fought.”
The energy on the court was intense from the start, and Notre Dame junior guard NaVorro Bowman Jr. matched it like he has done all season. Bowman finished with 20 points.
He started the game with a dunk down the lane and a block on the defensive end.
It was a more balanced scoring attack for Notre Dame, as senior guard Zachary White and junior guard Josiah Nance both finished with 12 points, while Northcutt scored nine points.
“We just wanted to spread them out,” Sargeant said of the Knights’ offensive attack. “They do a match-up zone, so they’re going to have someone in the paint that’s not going to want to guard. And so we’d want to just make sure that guy had to guard somewhere on the perimeter. And then attack from there.”
St. John Bosco finishes 0-2 in pool play and is out of the Open Division bracket. The Braves have a play-in game for the state playoffs on Friday against Corona del Mar on Friday.
The results haven’t been in the Braves’ favor, but Dunn is still happy with the fight he’s seen.
“(Collins) is a warrior,” Dunn said. “(He’s) had an incredible year, good year (as) anybody in the country. Overall, our guys played really hard.”
Sargeant was proud of the effort his team has put forth for all 32 minutes. He believes Mission League play is a factor in preparing for playoff games like this.
“You’re going up against teams that are nationally ranked every single week,” Sergeant said of being in the Mission League. “The intensity of the game and the physicality required to win is something that you build and learn over time so that you can win during this time of year.”
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