CIF NorCal basketball: No. 6 Salesian makes a statement in 81-51 win over No. 10 San Ramon Valley
SAN PABLO — If it wasn’t a perfect game, it sure was close.
No. 6 Salesian went 12-for-18 (67%) from 3-point range and smothered No. 10 San Ramon Valley in an 81-51 win in the Division I NorCal semifinals at Contra Costa College on Saturday night.
“We lost to a team that was better than us tonight,” SRV coach Brian Botteen said. “They’re on a roll. I would be shocked if they didn’t win the whole thing.”
Standing in the way is No. 9 Granada, which knocked off No. 4 Archbishop Riordan, 69-57, in the other semifinal. The two will face off Tuesday with a winner advancing to the Division I state championship game on Friday.
“We’re locked in right now,” said Salesian coach Bill Mellis.
Saturday’s game was a thing of beauty for the Pride, who spread the ball around and didn’t rely too heavily on one player to score. And they’ve got a former quarterback, junior guard Aaron Claytor, who dekes around defenders and dishes no-look passes like Patrick Mahomes.
The Pride jumped out to a 33-23 lead at halftime and then started the third quarter with three consecutive 3-pointers. Five players knocked down at least one trey, while junior Amani Johnson led the barrage with four.
Mellis said the Pride watched tape of their 55-39 win over SRV in the North Coast Section Open Division playoffs and anticipated their opponents would come out in a 1-3-1 defense, which is exactly what happened.
“We had some plays ready, some new plays we just put in this week,” Mellis said. “It ended up with some wide-open 3s for Amani, one of our better shooters. He knocked down a bunch of wide-open 3s from that spot (in the corner).”
Salesian players Deundrae Perteete, Elias Obenyah and Evin Goodwin combined to go 6-for-6 from behind the arc.
And while the efficiency was impressive, it wasn’t by accident.
With Claytor deftly weaving through traffic and often drawing two or three defenders with him, it was easy for Salesian to find wide-open looks from 3-point range or for Claytor to show off one of his signature no-look passes to a teammate crashing in the paint.
“He’s so good at controlling the tempo, finding open guys,” Mellis said. “He just has really good vision. He’s the difference in how we play. He pushes the ball when he’s supposed to and pulls it out when he’s supposed to. He’s so good at controlling the whole thing. He’s the guy. He makes everyone else better.”
Claytor was just as good at finishing his own drives when the shot was there. He went 4-for-5 from the field and finished with 11 points.
“When I was young I played quarterback, so it’s just having that ability to see the field and bringing that over to the court and finding shooters,” he said. “We have shooters that can knock down shots, that helps a lot.”
A 6-foot-3 junior, he said he stopped playing football in middle school to focus on basketball.
“Football was my first sport,” he said. “Basketball was my first love.”
Now he’s leading a Pride team that’s gone 19-2 over their last 21 games and are out to prove their early exit from the first round of the D-II playoffs last year was an anomaly.
“We knew that’s not how our team is,” Claytor said. “We had to make a statement.”