Mike Mathews
Cumberland Times-News
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FROSTBURG — Add nine more three-point goals and six more dunks to the running totals for the DeMatha Stags.
But it took them a full 32 minutes to put away Benedictine Friday night, 66-54, to earn a spot in the championship game of the 50th Alhambra Catholic Invitational Tournament.
The 19-time champion Stags (32-3) will play two-time defending champion Gonzaga in an all-Washington Catholic Athletic Conference final tonight at 8:15 at Frostburg State University.
Victor Oladipo, headed to Indiana University, had a game-high 20 points and seven rebounds, junior Quinn Cook had 19 points and four assists, and Jerian Grant, headed to Notre Dame, scored 16 points as DeMatha, No. 13 in the USA Today, stretched its winning streak to 13.
Duke-bound Mike Gbinije hit seven of his first nine shots and finished 9-for-13 from the floor for 19 points for Benedictine (24-8), of Richmond, Va. Trey Davis had 12 points and six rebounds for the Cadets, who face Mt. St. Joseph’s in the third-place game today at 6:30.
The Stags, who breezed to an 89-38 win over Cathedral on Thursday, never trailed in Friday night’s semifinal. But they found themselves up by only 49-45 with two minutes left in the third quarter, and by only 54-49 with four minutes left in the fourth.
“Coach (Sean) McAloon’s guys are going to play hard no matter what the score is and I think we definitely took our foot off the gas a bit, especially mentally, and that’s what allowed them to get back into position to make it a game,’’ said DeMatha coach Mike Jones.
“They played us tough in December for three quarters and a couple of minutes, but we were able to pull away a little better that night,” he said of a 70-47 win.
DeMatha hit Benedictine with everything it had, offensively, in the first half — seven three-point goals, two three-point plays, three dunks — but the Cadets were still standing, and standing tall, at the break down by only 41-34.
DeMatha shot 14-for-22 from the field, including 7-for-10 from the three-point line, in the first two quarters. Benedictine was no shooting slouch, either, making 13-of-22 overall and 3-of-5 three-pointers.
Benedictine cut its deficit to one, 28-27, after a three-point shot by Gbinjie with 3:50 left in the second quarter. But DeMatha went on a 10-2 run over the next 1:51 with Grant hitting a three-pointer, Oladipo a layup, Mikael Hopkins a dunk and Cook a three-point play to make it 38-29.
Erik Moody hit a three-pointer at the end of the half to bring the Cadets to within 41-34 at the half.
Again, the Stags looked ready to pull away after a rebound and one-handed slam by Oladipo, a Grant jumper and a baseline spin by Cook gave DeMatha its largest lead, 47-34, in the opening minutes of the third quarter.
But the Stags suddenly went cold, and the Cadets went on a 13-4 run and were down by just 51-47 at the end of the period. They could have cut further into the lead, but turned the ball over twice in the final minutes of the period.
Grant opened the fourth by nailing a three-pointer to make it 54-49 with 6:20 to go, and neither team scored for more than two minutes, until Cook sank a three-pointer from the right side to make it 57-49.
Another Cook jumper put the lead into double figures at 59-49, and it stayed in double digits for all but a few seconds the rest of the way, the closest the Cadets able to get being nine at 61-52 after a R.J. Price three-pointer with 2:05 to go, and 63-54 after an Erik Moody bucket at 1:45.
DeMatha finished 24-for-43 from the field, and was 9-for-14 from three-point range. They are 16-for-28 on three-point tries in two tournament games.
“We didn’t play very good defense in the first half,” said Jones, “and when you make that many threes you can kind of fall in love with it. In the second half, they didn’t fall with the same accuracy and that hurt us a bit.
“But we won the game, and obviously getting to Saturday’s final game is the goal anytime. We just wanted to get to Saturday, and we’ll take our chances with Gonzaga. We could have played better, but I’m sure Benedictine feels they could have played better, too.”
The DeMatha-Gonzaga final will be their fourth meeting this year. Gonzaga won 67-65, and DeMatha won by 73-69 and 71-52.
Mike Mathews is a Cumberland Times-News sports writer. He can be reached at mmathews@times-news.com.
