Boys’ basketball: San Clemente beats Mater Dei...for a half

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Fifty years from now, San Clemente players can proudly show their grandkids tape of their Southern Section Division I-AA first-round playoff game against Mater Dei.

Of course, they’ll want to stop the tape at halftime.

After stumbling through a regular season in which they lost more games than they won, the Tritons led the top-ranked team in the country, 28-26, at intermission.

What was the atmosphere like in the Mater Dei locker room?

‘Actually, it was pretty quiet,’ Monarchs Coach Gary McKnight, a 1971 alumnus of San Clemente, said Thursday. ‘It was just a matter of having to play at a higher level.’

Things got so ugly for Mater Dei in the early going that McKnight substituted in his second team for about six minutes. It didn’t get any better and the Monarchs went into halftime trailing for the first time this season.

Finally, Mater Dei exerted itself in the third quarter and began to pull away for a 75-48 victory. Junior guard Gary Franklin Jr. scored 27 points to lead four Monarchs players in double figures.

Mater Dei (27-0) plays at Upland (18-11) on Friday in the second round after surviving a big scare.

‘Wake-up calls are better than farewell calls,’ McKnight said.

--Ben Bolch