Central Catholic defeats Kennedy in NorCal Regional basketball opener

The missed free throws. The turnovers. The occasional malaise.

All of those issues will be addressed over the next few days by Central Catholic High School boys basketball coach Mike Wilson, grateful there’s still another game on the schedule.

Though sloppy at times, No. 2-seeded Central Catholic used a strong third-quarter surge to put away visiting No. 15 Kennedy of Richmond 86-61 in the opening round of the CIF Northern California Division IV Regional tournament Wednesday evening.

Amrit Dhaliwal continued his torrid postseason with a team-high 17 points. Fellow guard Jared Rice scored 16 points, including back-to-back and-one opportunities during the Raiders’ decisive 14-2 push in the third quarter.

Sophomores Joshua Hamilton and Malcolm Clayton also scored in double figures for Central Catholic (26-5), which has won three of its last five games by 19 or more points. Hamilton scored 13 points, while Clayton, brimming with confidence after a trial-by-fire season in the Valley Oak League, scored eight of his 10 points in the first half.

“It was very important to come out here and make a statement, and I think we really did in the second half. … The defensive intensity really picked up, which was my problem with them in the first half,” Wilson said. “That led to rebounding, which led to us getting up and down the court, creating things for ourselves.”

The victory sets up a second-round showdown with seventh-seeded Santa Cruz (22-7) at 6 p.m. Saturday at Central Catholic. Santa Cruz defeated No. 10 Arcata 78-62.

The Raiders carved out a 38-31 halftime lead but gave their North Coast Section opponent hope with 10 turnovers and a dismal shooting performance at the free-throw line. Central Catholic was 8 for 19 from the stripe in the first half and missed eight of its last 10 attempts.

Rice was 2 for 8 from the line during that stretch.

“I’m in the gym every day shooting free throws. I’m getting better and better. Tonight was a rough night. I understand that,” Rice said. “I tried to do other things in the game, whether defensively or taking it to the rack and getting and-ones. It will be cool. It will come.”

The springy junior realizes the Raiders can’t afford another mistaken-prone performance against the Santa Cruz Coast League champion.

“As we move on, we’ll be playing tougher teams. We can’t start off like that. We got lucky in sections (against West Campus); we started off really slow, and they got a huge lead,” he said. “We can’t be doing that if we want to compete for state.”

Wilson turned to his bench for a spark early in the third quarter. Frustrated with the Raiders’ lack of intensity to start the second half, Wilson burned a timeout and shuffled his lineup.

He wanted energy. Fast feet. Quick hands. Players willing to crash the boards and get out on the break.

Like he has so often in this history-making postseason, Dhaliwal, a fearless 5-foot-10 junior, answered the call. He triggered the decisive run with a left-handed layup and a three-pointer from the corner. Dhaliwal has scored in double figures in all five of the Raiders’ postseason games.

Rice scored the next five points, finishing through contact, and reserve forward Daron Bland scored off an offensive rebound to make it 53-38.

“Usually, we have these slow starts. It’s happened to us the last five games, but at halftime, we talked about intensity and hard work,” Rice said. “Personally, I wanted to go out there and play good defense, get something going for us. We stepped it up. Got some fast-break layups, some easy buckets.”

In the span of three minutes, Kennedy’s bench experienced the full range of emotion. Thoughts of a potential upset eventually gave way to cries of frustration, which eventually gave way to …

Silence.

Central Catholic turned out the lights on Kennedy’s season with another 15-2 spurt to start the fourth quarter.

Rather than dwell on the negatives, Wilson lauded his team’s depth and attention to rebounding. Ten players scored, and the Raiders outworked the Eagles 46-23 on the glass.

Senior Peter Hamilton wore the hard hat for the Raiders, totaling seven points, nine rebounds and three blocked shots.

“It’s something we don’t normally see from our kids,” Wilson said of the turnovers and missed free throws, “but we survived and we came back in the second half and did a really nice job.”

This story was originally published March 9, 2016 at 10:57 PM with the headline "Central Catholic defeats Kennedy in NorCal Regional basketball opener."