STORY BY MATT SIMON
After making the 45-mile trip from Long Beach to Cal State Northridge’s Matadome, St. Anthony boys’ basketball gave Sierra Canyon all it could handle in the first two quarters of their CIF-SS Open Division Pool A contest.
After trailing by 13 points after the first quarter, Makaih Williams and Corry Brown led the Saints on a furious comeback to cut Sierra Canyon’s lead to six points at halftime.
However, St. Anthony was held to one field goal in the third quarter and the comeback attempt fell short in a 61-49 loss to Sierra Canyon.
“We didn’t shoot well tonight,” St. Anthony coach Allen Caveness said. “Our best scorer didn’t make a field goal. We have other guys that we count on for scoring that just didn’t shoot well.”
Senior and Long Beach State commit Jadon Jones was held scoreless and just couldn’t get anything going during a frustrating shooting night.
“He’s got to have a short memory,” Caveness said. “We have a big game and another really good team on Friday. (He) can’t hold onto it and he can use is as motivation. I thought he got good shots, it just didn’t go down.”
After cutting the lead to six heading to halftime, the Trailblazers (26-4) outscored St. Anthony 21-13 in the third quarter to take a double-digit lead.
Sierra Canyon took advantage of St. Anthony miscues as they went on a 13-5 run to put things out of reach for the Saints (26-4).
Amari Bailey scored 17 points for Sierra Canyon to lead all scorers and Corry Brown and Jaaydon Bush scored 12 and 10 points, respectively.
St. Anthony will wrap up Pool A play on Friday when the Saints host St. John Bosco.
Although the Saints are officially out of the running for the Open Division title, Caveness thinks the pool play format can help the team in the long run.
“I think the format is fine,” Caveness said. “It gives us three really good teams that we have to go against. They’re all very different in their style of play, so hopefully it’ll help us for the state playoffs.”
