SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO >> The JSerra boys basketball team cruised to a 60-44 win over St. John Bosco Tuesday in the CIF-SS Division 1 semifinals at JSerra High.
JSerra (19-9) will host St. Bernard in the championship game Friday at 7 p.m.. The two programs have never played each other.
This will be the first time JSerra has played for a CIF championship since 2014 when the Lions beat Oaks Christian to win the Division 4AA championship.
“This journey has been incredible. If you told me coming into the season that this was the group that would make it to the CIF finals, I’d say you were crazy,” JSerra coach Keith Wilkinson said. “We don’t have a Division I guy on our roster. I’m just so proud of them. This group has been fantastic, 1 through 17, it takes the whole group.”
The two Trinity League foes had previously met twice before Tuesday’s game. JSerra won the first matchup at home 63-52 and St. John Bosco (22-9) won the second matchup 59-54.
“It obviously helps to have home-court advantage against those guys, but they are so well-coached and play so hard,” Wilkinson said. “We just have to be able to rebound the ball with them and we did that. We guarded enough to where it gave us a chance.”
JSerra never led by less than 11 points after the second quarter and led by as many as 21 points in the fourth quarter.
Robert Diaz led the Lions with 19 points and seven rebounds. Aidan Fowler had 13 points with eight rebounds and two blocked shots.
The Lions blew the game open in the second quarter when they outscored the Braves 18-10. Diaz scored 10 points in the frame on two 3-pointers and Everett Bryson had six points.
JSerra was outrebounded 41-38 and had to battle some adversity. Starting center Dane Persek got two fouls in the first two minutes of the game and missed much of the first half. Forward Joshua Ragsdale suffered an injury early in the third quarter and missed the rest of the game.
Two big guys came off the bench for the Lions and picked up the slack. Sebastian Rancik and Austin Persek combined for 11 points, 13 rebounds and kept the Braves out of the paint for much of the game.
Freshman Kade Bonam led the Braves with 17 points, 10 of which were scored in the fourth quarter. Bonam also had nine rebounds and a block.
Christian Estrada was dominant on the boards for St. John Bosco. The 6-foot-7 senior center had 19 rebounds with eight points.
St. John Bosco was the third-place team in the Trinity League during the regular season, and JSerra was the fourth-place team. The Braves beat Culver City, Fairmont Prep of Anaheim and Loyola in the earlier rounds of the playoffs.