Central Catholic shows Santa Cruz the door in NorCal D-IV basketball

Jared Rice leaked out on the fast break, absorbing contact as he finished at the rim, plunging the proverbial dagger into Santa Cruz.

The hard foul sent the Central Catholic High School guard crashing through the gymnasium doors, where he slid to a stop in the foyer.

“It hurt a little bit,” Rice said, rubbing the back of his head. “I was dazed a little bit. That was a big momentum shift, but I felt the whole game we were coming. They would go on a run, and we would come right back. I felt like this was a complete team effort, and we played four quarters.”

The play sent a chilling message through the visiting Santa Cruz crowd, who watched Rice dust himself off and re-enter the gym to complete the and-one free throw. That message: The exit is this way.

Rice scored a team-high 19 points, and the Hamilton boys – Peter and Joshua, no relation – anchored a stellar defensive effort by the Raiders in an 84-63 victory over Santa Cruz on Saturday night in the CIF Northern California Regional Division IV quarterfinals.

Central Catholic will host Palma of Salinas on Tuesday. Palma defeated Mission of San Francisco 73-68. The game will be the last in Central Catholic’s current gym.

“We knew we had to come out and get a solid win to make a statement for everyone else in our D-IV playoffs,” Joshua Hamilton said. “I think we did a really good job of that by coming out with intensity.”

In a postseason marred by choppy starts, Central Catholic (27-5) played perhaps its most complete game. The Raiders led wire-to-wire, building steadily on its first-quarter lead. Central Catholic had runs of 7-0 and 10-0 en route to a 35-29 halftime advantage.

Cooper Wilson knocked down a three-pointer off an offensive rebound by Malcolm Clayton as the Raiders scored the first seven points.

Later, Peter Hamilton got the Santa Cruz defense to bite on a pump fake and then leaned into his shot to push the lead to 11-6. On the next possession, postseason hero Amrit Dahliwal connected on a corner three in transition to shake the small gymnasium.

The game – and season – started to slip away from Santa Cruz in the second quarter. The Cardinals (22-8) went nearly four minutes without a point as the Central Catholic lead grew to 26-15. Four players scored for the Raiders during that pivotal stretch, including four points from sophomore forward James Bland.

Another 10-0 run early in the third quarter put the game out of reach, even for a dynamic scoring guard like Santa Cruz’s Kaijae Yee-Stephens, who entered the game averaging 26 points per game.

Wilson had 15 points on three three-pointers. Dhaliwal closed with nine and saw his streak of games with 10 or more points end at five.

Clayton scored 12 points, while Peter Hamilton had another stellar all-around performance. The fourth-year varsity player had four points, four blocked shots and six rebounds, and returned from a scary fall in the third quarter.

“Everybody contributed something,” Central Catholic coach Mike Wilson said. “It was the timing. They were making moves, and we made shots that were important. I thought this was a more complete game than the last few.”

Joshua Hamilton had nine points, eight assists and five rebounds, but the budding sophomore did his best work on the defensive end. For most of the game, he was locked in a one-on-one battle with Yee-Stephens, a combo guard headed to Southern Utah on scholarship.

The 6-foot-2, 190-pound senior lived up to the hype. He scored 40 points and shouldered the load in the second half for Santa Cruz.

Yee-Stephens scored 28 of the Cardinals’ 34 points over the final two quarters, showcasing the strength, touch and range that made him a coveted Division I recruit.

He had 12 points in the first half after picking up two offensive fouls. Coach Wilson said that was a testament to Joshua Hamilton and his competitive drive.

Wilson broke the news to Hamilton in the team room just before final warm-ups, deviating from the defense they had already installed. He tasked the sophomore – a cornerback and wide receiver on the sophomore football team – with playing tag-along defense.

Hamilton rose to the occasion, attaching himself to Yee-Stephens like a shadow.

“We’ve done this before years ago against a kid averaging 37 from Sacramento Waldorf, and it worked. We held him way under his average,” coach Wilson said. “This year, against Enterprise, we experimented with it and it worked. Tonight, it worked mainly in getting (Yee-Stephens) tired. You could tell he was frustrated.

“He’s a very good basketball player, but he missed some big shots that we were able to clear and do something with on the offensive end.”

This story was originally published March 12, 2016 at 10:39 PM with the headline "Central Catholic shows Santa Cruz the door in NorCal D-IV basketball."