Erik Boal
ST. FRANCIS HIGH -- Over the course of three games played in less than
a week, what do you get when you mix five players averaging in double
figures playing for a team that is averaging 99.3 points a game and
shooting a combined 54% from the field?
A good NBA team? The No. 1 ranked team in college basketball? Both
answers are sufficient, but both are wrong.
Those statistics reflect the performance of Bishop Montgomery High,
which continued its string of impressive efforts with an 88-60 victory
over St. Francis High in a Brown Regional Pool E game Monday night at St.
Francis High.
Bishop Montgomery (6-1) completed its sweep of Pool E and advanced to
the Brown Regional championship game against Moorpark, an 80-54 winner
over Glendale.
"They are so athletic and so talented, it's hard to shut them down,"
St. Francis Coach John Jordan said. "One of our keys was defensive
transition and I thought we did a good job of getting back, but they just
find ways to split your defense and score over you."
Scoring is something Bishop Montgomery has not had problems with in
the tournament thus far. Its 88-point outing Monday was a tournament low
after scoring 95 and 115 points in its first two contests.
Leading the way for Coach Doug Mitchell's Knights was junior guard
Errick Craven, who tallied a game-high 33 points, eight rebounds and four
steals.
Errick's twin brother, Derrick -- the tournament's leading scorer --
added 14 points and eight rebounds for a three-game total of 76 points
and 21 rebounds.
Junior point guard Kenny D'Oyen scored 18 points and freshman forward
Fred Washington recorded eight points and eight rebounds for Bishop
Montgomery, which led, 29-11, at the end of the first quarter.
"Outside of (Brian) Pruitt, anyone on their team can just get the
rebound and go," Jordan said. "Coming in if you would have told me that
we would have scored 60 points, I would have been pretty happy, we just
couldn't afford to get down that much early."
St. Francis (5-2) trailed, 15-9, with 3:45 remaining in the first
quarter, but Bishop Montgomery put together a 14-0 run to blow the game
open before the Golden Knights' Michael John scored on a putback as time
expired.
Derrick Craven led all scorers with 11 in the quarter and Errick
Craven added eight as Mitchell's squad shot 11 of 16 (69%) out of the
blocks.
The Golden Knights faced its biggest deficit of the first half at 26
points when D'Oyen hit a pull-up jump shot with three minutes left in the
