The Canyon High School boys’ basketball team’s season ended on Tuesday, but not before accomplishing its biggest goal of the season, head coach Ali Monfared said on Thursday.
The Cowboys fell on the road on Tuesday at St. Augustine High School in San Diego, 60-40, in the first round of the CIF Division II state playoffs.
“Most teams end the season on a loss, and so it’s really nothing I’m concerned about or upset about at all,” Monfared said in a phone interview on Thursday. “The only thing that we talked about after the game was that it was a little sad that this group was done playing together, but overall, the memories and how hard they’ve worked — like, proud is an understatement. So, you know, Tuesday was a tough game, but credit to them. They were a really good school, and that really doesn’t at all reflect any of our feelings for the season. We’re beyond proud.”
Canyon (24-10) ends its season as CIF Southern Section Division 2A champions after beating St. Bonaventure at Azusa Pacific University last week in triple overtime for the program’s first CIF title. Having one more game in the state tournament, Monfared said, was an added bonus.
“It was an enjoyable day, even though the result didn’t go our way,” Monfared said. “We were in San Diego with the guys and we got a chance to eat together and walk on the beach. And so we know our goal is to try to win every game, but, you know, ultimately, we did what we wanted to do last week.”
St. Augustine (19-14), CIF San Diego Section Division 1 champions, ran out to a 7-0 lead before increasing that to 13-2 in the first quarter. Monfared said the Cowboys were able to cut the deficit to five at the half and then three in the third quarter before St. Augustine’s full-court press gave the Cowboys trouble late in the contest.
St. Augustine’s Jaden Bailes and Paisios Polamalu were the standouts on Tuesday, Monfared said.
“We had to use two timeouts early,” Monfared said. “We kind of weathered the storm after that, and we had cut it to three or five several times. And, you know, I just felt like every time we got it to that point, they would get an offensive rebound or hit a big three. You know, they had some really impressive guys on their team. Bailes and Polamalu specifically really played well.”
Canyon had senior Eric Kubel put up 20 points on Tuesday. Senior Daniel Gonzalez added six points and senior Chigo Osuji had five.
Junior Isaac Yuhico, Canyon’s point guard and someone Monfared is looking forward to seeing return as a leader next season, had four points. He led the team with 20 points in last week’s win over St. Bonaventure.
The Cowboys are set to graduate eight seniors, including Kubel and Sean Hernandez, both of whom have been on the varsity squad since their sophomore years.
“I always believe in our program and our kids,” Monfared said. “We lose a lot of guys that played heavy minutes this year, and you know, more so than even on the court, because on the court, there’s some guys we lose that it’s going to be hard to replace what they do, but the leadership of these seniors and making sure that things were not just done, but done with quality, is something we’re going to have to work on. It’s not going to be an overnight thing. We’re going to have to have younger guys from JV hopefully step up, and hopefully we have the three returners are going to really take that leadership role. Isaac’s been a leader since he’s been here, and I’m really looking forward to Alex (Lazo) and Adam (Graham) taking that, and we’re really looking forward to the challenge of kind of just figuring it out.”
