Gahr Gladiators Are CIF Champions

In a CIF-Southern Section Division 2A Boys Basketball Championship that was pedal-to-the-metal nearly the entire game Saturday night, Gahr defeated Mayfair, 63-48, at the Anaheim Convention Center Arena.

But it was an off-the-field battle of the fiancée of Gladiators’ first-year head coach Richard Roper that was just as big a story.

Roper’s fiancée,  Deycie Davis, has been battling leukemia, and according to a story published Saturday by The Long Beach Press-Telegram, Roper said she responded very well to the most recent round of chemotherapy, She needs a bone marrow transplant, and the story said it won't be easy to find, because his fiancée is half African-American, a quarter Samoan and quarter Chinese.

“What was really nice was this was the first game she’s been to this season,” Roper said. “She just got out of the hospital Wednesday. It definitely meant more to have her here.”

Along with at least 2,000 other people in the stands, she witnessed a great game that the final score did not do justice, with the score tied at 40 after the third quarter and ended by Gahr’s 23-8 run in the fourth quarter.

Gahr began the fourth on a 7-0 run, but the Monsoons answered with a 5-0 run that made it a 47-45 game. Gahr forward Brian Nebo slammed a wide-open dunk off of a steal by John Benson home for a 51-45 lead, which ignited the crowd at a high-pitch level.

Nebo followed that with a bounding, off-balance layup for an eight-point lead that all but sealed the deal with 1:27 remaining. The Gladiators (23-7) finished with a 16-3 run after the two-point lead.

Nebo scored nine points, but his two baskets broke open a four-point lead.

“I was executing, trying to win,” Nebo said. “I’m a sophomore, trying to get a victory. I felt great (on the dunk); I felt like all that hard work in practice, we just keep doing what we’ve got to do. I was kind of worried a little bit, I feel like we were going to pull it off and do what we had to do.”

Nebo was among several players who stepped it up, as leading scorer Davon Potts, who had come into the final averaging 28 points in three CIF-SS playoff games, struggled with 2-of-15 shooting from the field. Potts still led his team in scoring, shooting a clinical 11 for 12 from the free-throw line.

Michael Alvarez scored 12 points and grabbed nine rebounds, while point guard Javonte Sales drove hard to the basket and set the tone with speedy ball-handling, scoring 11 points and four assists. Potts and Sales were starters on the 2009 team that lost in the CIF finals.

Gahr shot 35.4 % from the field (17-of-48), and in the most impressive statistic of the night, held Mayfair (26-5) to just 26.2% shooting (16-of-61). Dion Wright, the Monsoons’ big threat, shot just 4-of-14 and was held to 12 points. Wright’s biggest play was a three-point play early in the third that cut Gahr’s lead to 36-32.

“We didn’t have our best shooting night,” Roper said. “But we kept defending, kept rebounding.”

On several occasions, Gahr went inside to forwards Kyle Benton (eight points), Benson (five points) and Nebo, using their size advantage at will.

The Gladiators also outrebounded the Monsoons, 51-28.

“We did a phenomenal job rebounding,” Roper said.

The last time Mayfair led was with 2:06 left in the third quarter, when reserve guard Marland Browning made an outside jumper for a 40-38 lead. But Sales got it back on a drive for a basket that tied the score at 40-40. Sales continued his big play in one of the first possessions of the fourth quarter, calmly drilling a jumper from just within the 3-point line for a 42-40 lead that Gahr would never relinquish.

Gahr also got to the free-throw line more often by far, sinking 27-of-37 shots to the Monsoons’ 8of-14.

The one thing Mayfair was able to do was shoot the 3-ball, hitting 8 out of 28 from beyond the arc. Myles Smith, who finished with 10 points, hit a 3-pointer for an early 11-5 Mayfair lead, but Gahr went on a 12-0 run that was capped off by a three-point play by Benson for a 15-11 first-quarter lead.

Gahr made a blistering amount of turnovers, 10 in the first half and 18 in the game, but fortunately Mayfair turned it over right back the majority of those times. Gahr took a 30-25 lead at halftime and led nearly the entire game.

Mayfair reserve guard Corey Foster scored 11 points on three 3-pointers.