CIF State Championships: Harvard-Westlake Wins Open Title on Salesian's Terms

The Pride controlled the game, but the Wolverines got big shots from their All-American down the stretch.

The CIF Open Division Championship Game was played squarely on Salesian’s terms.

The Pride held a Harvard-Westlake team that entered the night averaging 72.6 points per game to just 50. They held the Wolverines scoreless for the first four minutes of the third quarter and allowed just 19 points for the entire second half.

But thanks to the late clutch shooting of USC commit and McDonald’s All-American Trent Perry, the Wolverines won, 50-45.

“They gave us everything we can handle and more,” Harvard-Westlake head coach David Rebibo said. “Just a heavyweight bout with knockout punch after knockout punch. The team with the most resolve was gonna finish it, and I’m glad it was us.”

Perry drove to the hoop to give Harvard-Westlake (33-3) a 46-45 lead with 1:18 left, then drained a fadeaway elbow jumper at the end of the shot clock with 26.8 to go. Salesian (31-2) threw the ball out of bounds on the ensuing possession, and Perry’s two free throws with 9.2 seconds left iced the game.

“We turned the ball over a couple times in the last four possessions, which is pretty uncharacteristic for us, but they also played pretty good defense,” Salesian head coach Bill Mellis said.

He finished with 17 points, while Harvard commit Robert Hinton scored a game-high 19, including 15 in the first half.

Harvard-Westlake is the third team to win back-to-back Open Division crowns, joining Mater Dei (2013-14) and Sierra Canyon (2018-19). Salesian came up painstakingly short of becoming the second Northern California team to win the Open Division since its inception in 2013. Bishop O’Dowd’s Ivan Rabb-led 2015 squad remains the only one to achieve the feat.

Had the Pride pulled it off, sophomore Elias Obenyah would have become an overnight hero. He led the Pride with 14 points, eight rebounds and three assists, and it was his spin move and shot over Perry that gave Salesian a 45-44 lead with 1:32 to go. He had also tied the game at 42 with 5:56 left on a pump fake, one of the only moves to beat Harvard-Westlake’s star defender, Nik Khamenia.

Khamenia scored seven points on 3-of-15 shooting, but played all 32 minutes thanks to his exceptional defending. He’s been instrumental in both of the Wolverines’ championship wins; a year ago, he was tasked with stopping St. Joseph star Tounde Yessoufou.

“He’s such a high IQ player who sees things happening before they even happen,” Rebibo said. “We almost have to get him off of film because he’s such a basketball fanatic. He’s so passionate about being in the right spots, quarterbacking his team defensively and kind of being that free safety in the back. He does all of those things that don’t show up on the stat sheet, but make him a force.”

Outside of the first quarter, where Harvard-Westlake went on a 19-5 run to take a 21-11 lead, the game was a defensive grind. Salesian went into halftime down just 31-27 after an Obenyah spin move and floater and took the lead on Obenyah’s drive with 4:56 left in the third.

“We’ve been a second half team,” senior guard De’Undrae Perteete Jr. said. “That’s where we go on our best runs, and this game wasn’t an exception.”

Despite controlling the game, Salesian led for just 2:32, including a 58-second stretch in the first quarter when Perteete and Hawaii commit Aaron Hunkin-Claytor knocked down back-to-back threes. The Pride made four of their first six 3-point attempts across the first 11 minutes, but shot just four more for the game and didn’t connect on any.

Harvard-Westlake didn’t light it up from outside either, largely thanks to Salesian’s defense. The Wolverines were 3-of-9 from deep, missing their final six attempts after starting 3-for-3 on shots from Christian Horry, Hinton and Amir Jones.

Hinton was a perfect 4-of-4 from the line and 7-of-7 from the floor until he finally missed a jumper with 2:11 left. The Pride had a chance to tie on the following possession, but Amani Johnson missed the first of two free throws with 2:08 remaining, leaving his team trailing 44-43.

“Plays in the last two minutes are magnified,” Mellis noted. “Guys are hurting because they made a turnover or missed a shot or whatever. Maybe if we don’t go down 21-11 in the first quarter, we’re not in that situation.”

Johnson is one of six graduating seniors that played his final game in a Salesian uniform. Five of those seniors got in the game and three started; Perteete scored 10 points, Hunkin-Claytor had six and Zion Yeargin added six off the bench.