CIF State Championships: Santa Cruz Comes up Short in Division III
Alemany's mammoth frontcourt blocked the Cardinals from completing their run to a title.
The Santa Cruz Cardinals recovered from a punch to the gut with brass knuckles to go all the way to a state championship game.
But Alemany’s Congolese frontcourt stopped Santa Cruz from completing the run to the title as the Warriors won the CIF Division III Championship, 63-53 at Golden 1 Center on Friday afternoon.
“We allowed their length to bother us, and that pretty much dictated the outcome of the game,” Cardinals head coach Lawan Milhouse said. “When you get to this stage, that can’t happen.”
Santa Cruz (27-7) had put together an impressive rally after losing a one-point heartbreaker in the CCS Division III Championship, the latest in a series of painful section title game losses for the Cardinals. It got them all the way to Golden 1 Center, but the tandem of 6-foot-8 junior Bourgeois Tshilobo and 6-9 sophomore Samuel Mbingazo limited SC to 37.8% shooting, including a dismal and almost unfathomable 10-for-30 on 2-pointers.
“Two of the four teams that we just got finished playing had that length,” Milhouse added. “For some reason, tonight we allowed it to bother us.”
If the massive frontcourt wasn’t enough to deal with, the Cardinals also had to contend with Michael Lindsay.
An Idaho State football commit, Lindsay showed he just as easily could have pursued basketball at the next level as well, scoring a game-high 25 points.
“I’ve been trying to reach out to Division I coaches, but I’m just focused on playing football in college,” Lindsay said.
While he and Mbingazo played like Division I recruits for Alemany (25-15), the Cardinals kept pace thanks to their own splendid sophomore, DeMarco Hunter. He scored a team-high 22 points, led all players with 12 rebounds and had a double-double by the end of the third quarter.
“DeMarco doesn’t know how good he can be,” Milhouse said.
But Hunter had little help. 6-foot-5 forward Ben Dotten had 12 points and seven rebounds, and Liam Jones scored eight off the bench. It wasn’t enough to keep up with Lindsay and Jared Mims, who scored 14. Mbingazo finished with six points and Tshilobo scored just five, but each had eight rebounds and Mbingazo recorded three blocks.
Had the Cardinals not scored 17 points in the final five minutes, the numbers illustrating Mbingazo and Tshilobo’s impact would have been even more staggering. Santa Cruz made just three of 19 two-point attempts in the first half before finally getting to the rim on a series of Hunter putbacks.
While Santa Cruz’s scoring mainly came from the perimeter, Alemany almost exclusively scored inside. The Warriors had 40 points in the paint and attempted just six 3-pointers for the game, with Lindsay making two of them. His first made it 28-20 in the final minute of the first half, and Tshilobo followed with a dunk to send Alemany into the locker room with a double-digit lead. He hit his second on the opening possession of the second half.
It’s Alemany’s second state title, and like the Warriors’ first one, it came in Division III against a team from the CCS. In 2012, the Warriors won a 71-67 thriller over Sacred Heart Cathedral at ARCO Arena (then officially known as Power Balance Pavilion) under longtime head coach Tray Meeks.
“He’s been a great friend and sounding board through this whole thing,” said Mike Dulaney, Meeks’ successor. “He was the first one to text me this morning at 5:55.”
The 2024 championship wasn’t quite the nailbiter that the 2012 game was. Lindsay’s dunk made it a 43-27 game late in the third, and Mims’ steal and layup gave the Warriors a 50-35 lead before Santa Cruz made one last push, getting within eight on Dotten’s 3-pointer with 1:15 left. Lindsay put the game away from there, making five of his six free throws in the final 68 seconds.