Prep basketball: Menlo-Atherton beats Burlingame, clinches PAL South title
Menlo-Atherton improves to 20-3, has one game left before moving on to CCS playoffs.
ATHERTON — Menlo-Atherton dispelled any lingering questions regarding the identity of the best team in the Peninsula Athletic League South with a 46-36 victory Wednesday over second-place Burlingame.
M-A won its 11th game in a row and improved to 20-3 overall, 11-0 in league, and clinched its sixth PAL South title in the last seven seasons.
The Bears, who conclude regular-season play Friday vs. Woodside, are seemingly a lock to make the eight-team Central Coast Section Open Division playoffs.
“Yes, we’ll be in the Open,” M-A coach Mike Molieri said. “We deserve it. We believe we are the best public-school program in CCS. This will be our fifth time in the Open. We may be the only public school there, so we will have to represent.”
M-A scored the first six points of the game and Burlingame (18-4, 9-2) scored the next seven. But then the Bears went on a 14-0 run to seize control. Burlingame was unable to shave its deficit to less than eight for the rest of the game.
The Panthers wanted to dictate a deliberate pace of play, but the game was played at M-A’s up-tempo preference.
“They put so much pressure on,” Burlingame coach Jeff Dowd said. “We had a hard time running our offense and they killed us on the boards. They had a lot of second-chance baskets.”
M-A had 10 offensive rebounds in the first half to three for Burlingame. The Bears outscored Burlingame 14-9 on points off turnovers and 14-7 on second-chance points.
The Bears were up 25-14 at halftime. The offensive key was the outside shooting of Ben Eisner, who scored 13 of his team-high 16 points in the first half. He made four 3-pointers in all.
“Not hesitating to shoot, I know my teammates trust me,” Eisner said. “Every time I get the ball they want me to shoot the ball.”
Meka Okereke scored 10 points and pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds. He had a spectacular one-handed putback slam dunk that got his team and its fans excited.
“Meka’s our energy guy,” Molieri said. “That was one heck of a dunk.”
Molieri had Johno Price, a third-year starter and also a standout at defensive back in football, follow Burlingame standout Zaden Martin everywhere he went. Martin finished with 16 points but had to work hard for them.
“Johno’s our Draymond-type of personality,” Molieri said. “For better or worse.”
Price had nine points and seven rebounds, but was 0-for-6 at the foul line. M-A was an abysmal 8-of-23 as a team at the line but still won by 10.
“We have to somehow figure that out,” Molieri said. “I’m most proud of the defense, holding a team like that under 40.”
Jalen Williams had five steals for M-A.
Kyle Haslam came up with nine rebounds for Burlingame, which will host San Mateo on Friday and then go into the CCS playoffs in Division III.
