League champs: Salesian boys pull away from Pinole Valley in TCAL-Rock final
RICHMOND – Salesian’s junior guard Amani Johnson had already made a three-pointer and a mid-range floater a few minutes earlier, so when Pinole Valley’s John Chapple had answered with back-to-back threes of his own, he was ready to let it fly on the very next possession.
Johnson’s effortless shot ripped through the net and pushed the Salesian lead back to five points.
“My teammates were just able to get into the paint, drew the defense in and then the defense didn’t know I’m a shooter,” Johnson said Saturday night. “So when they hit me, I got wide-open shots.”
That jumper kick-started a 12-0 third-quarter run that blew open what became a 67-53 Salesian victory, its ninth straight win over Pinole Valley, and a celebration as the team added another Tri-County Athletic League Rock Division title in the team’s trophy case.
A trip to the section playoff is next for Salesian (21-7).
“We’re gonna enjoy the win tonight, but tomorrow we’re gonna get ready for that next level,” Johnson said before he joined his teammates at midcourt to celebrate.
Salesian, winners of the TCAL Rock tournament every year since 2015, had four players score in double-figures. Deundrae Perteete had 13, and Johnson, Evin Goodwin and Aaron Claytor each finished with 12.
At one point, it looked like no Pride player would hit double-figures after Pinole Valley (24-5) jumped out to a 12-2 lead midway through the first quarter. Jordy Mckenzie started the game with a putback layup, and senior Kaleb Allison ended the burst with a one-handed dunk in transition that silenced the home crowd.
Pinole Valley, which had barely lost the season’s earlier matchups 77-75 and 66-59, seemed to be on its way to a rare win against Salesian.
“In the first half, they played great,” Salesian coach Bill Mellis said of Pinole Valley’s hot start. “I think they got tired down the stretch, and that benefitted us.”
As Mellis said, the Spartans couldn’t keep up the torrid pace, and Salesian was able to claw back into the game with putbacks and free throws. A Goodwin three-pointer from the corner capped off a 9-0 run in the second quarter that gave Salesian a 23-22 lead. Pinole Valley never led again.
In the second half, what had been hard rotations and quick deflections by Pinole Valley were a step late, and Salesian turned those miscues into backdoor layups and wide-open threes for shooters in the corners. Salesian tuned a 26-23 halftime lead into a 50-34 advantage going into the fourth quarter.
“I think we may have lost a little bit of our discipline in that third quarter,” Pinole Valley coach Danny Rynning said. “It showed with turnovers and bad shots, and when you make mistakes against Salesian, it’s very difficult to recover.”
Zion Wilburn scored 11 and Allison led the Pinole Valley with 13 points. Though they and Pinole Valley never stopped pressing and playing hard in the fourth, the deficit never got lower than 15 until the last basket of the game.
Rynning said he was encouraged by his team’s effort, and is now focused on the upcoming NCS tournament.
“We had a pretty good year, and our talent and our record justifies either the one or two seed in Division III,” Rynning said. “Salesian is a top-notch team, and there’s no shame in losing to a team like that. We’re gonna take this experience and take it with us into NCS.”
As for Salesian, a berth in the North Coast Section’s Open Division is all but certain, and the team will know its seed on Sunday.
Once in the section playoff, Mellis hopes his team’s brutal non-league schedule, which included a game against defending State Open Division champion Centennial-Corona, prepared them for the road ahead.
“We look forward to it, and we’ve already played some good competition,” Mellis said. “That’s why we played those games in December and at those tournaments.”