PMA boys basketball lose to St. Anthony, 75-68; postseason in jeopardy
DOWNEY – The 2025-26 regular season for the St. Pius-St. Matthias Academy (PMA) Boys Basketball team came to an end with a 75-68 Del Rey League loss to visiting St. Anthony Monday (February 2) night in a packed gym on senior night.
With a fourth-place finish in the 5-team league, the team must depend on petitioning for an at-large berth with the CIF-Southern Section selection committee.
Brackets will be released for the playoffs Saturday (Feb. 7) at noon on the CIF-SS website.
(Bracket announcements will be updated February 7 on the online story only)
In the meantime, the coaches and 10 players can only hope and wait for that opportunity.
“It’s something that we put ourselves into and at the end of the, we shouldn’t have been in this situation,” said PMA coach Donte Archie, of the possibility of not playing in the postseason. “At the end of the day, it’s not going to be given to you. We didn’t have it (Monday). And it’s nothing that can make you mad; it’s something that we go through all year.”
With the loss, the Warriors slip to 15-10 overall and 4-4 in league.
The Warriors have played in six consecutive postseasons, after five years on the outside looking in for the playoffs.
Included in the past six post seasons were CIF titles in 2020 and ‘23 and a CIF State Regional Semifinal appearance in 2020.
Prior to the game against St. Anthony, the five seniors were honored with their families in attendance.
Leading the Warriors in scoring in the game was senior forward Dayvion Gates with 22 points and senior guard Kayleb Kearse with 19. Senior guard Dominic Gallardo had nine points, while senior guard Christian Clayman and freshman guard Darrellreon “Reese” Morris scored seven points each. Sophomore guard Fox Narvaez added four points.
“We came out here to compete and played our hardest, and who knows it could be our last game and leave it all out on the floor,” Gates said. “We ended up coming out short and hope we get chance in the playoffs and a second chance.”
St. Anthony (15-10, 5-3) had four players in double figures – Jayden White (14), Jamil House (12), Mychal McQueen (12) and Josh Montez (10). Trystan Butardo and Marinio Ellisaint had nine each.
The Warriors, who came into the game knowing they had to win to guarantee a playoff spot, never trailed in the opening quarter, which included a 14-3 run midway through the quarter to 1:45 left.
Morris led PMA with seven points in the quarter, while Gates and Gallardo added four each.
Morris said of the five seniors, “The seniors played really hard and fought their butts off and tried to win the game,” he said. “I’m very proud of them, even though we lost.”
Morris reinjured his ankle and didn’t see action in the second half.
With less than a minute left in the quarter, Narvaez scored on a layup to give the Warriors their biggest lead of the game (12 points), 21-9. St. Anthony finished the quarter with a 5-2 run to trail, 23-14 heading into the second quarter.
In the second quarter, PMA took its biggest lead of the game after a 3-pointer by Kearse to give the Warriors a 30-14 advantage with 5:57 left in the half. That 16-point lead slowly began to disappear as St. Anthony went on a 13-2 run and only trailed by five points, 32-27 with 1:57 remaining in the half with balanced scoring by the Saints from four players.
The Warriors, however, finished the half with a 5-2 run on free throws by Kearse and Gallardo and a driving layup at the buzzer by Gates to hold a 37-29 lead at the break.
The second half was a different story as the Saints outscored PMA, 46-31.
“We got out rebounded on their offensive boards and they kept on capitalizing on that,” said Gates, on the comeback by the Saints to get back in the game.
After Gates scored on a layup at the beginning of the third quarter to take a 10-point, 39-29 lead, St. Anthony came out of the second half with a 9-2 run to close within a point, 39-38.
Moments later, the Saints took their first lead of the second half, 43-41, on a 3-pointer by McQueen with 4:30 left.
“When we had that lead, we made turnovers and let them get offensive rebounds and they just came back,” Morris added.
The rest of the quarter was back and forth as the teams’ traded baskets.
Gates had a putback and a free throw with :35 left, which was followed by a driving layup by White at the buzzer to hold a 49-48 lead heading into the final quarter.
In the fourth quarter with the score tied, 55-55, with 4:17 left in the game, the back-breaker was back-to-back three’s by Butardo of St. Anthony to lead, 61-55.
PMA never led again the rest of the way.
“I feel like we got a little tired and we jumped on them early and because of that lead we had in the first quarter in that long stretch we got a little complacent and they kept crawling back in it,” said Kearse, who is set to play in Northern California at D2 Menlo College.
Prior to the senior presentations at the half, it was announced to the crowd that Kearse had scored over 2,000 points in his career. His first two years were at Serra of Gardena.
“It was a very good experience here at PMA and I love my teammates and made some unbreakable bonds in the locker room,” he added. “That’s what I will miss the most.”
With the Warriors trailing by only by six points, 69-63, with :52 seconds remaining, Gates scored his only points of the quarter on a long 3-pointer to close within three, 69-66. But St. Anthony outscored the Warriors, 6-2 down the stretch on a layup and four free throws to put the game away.
The Saints outscored PMA, 26-20, in the fourth quarter.
Former PMA player Dayvon Gates, who played on the 2024 team that reached the CIF Open Division in the State playoffs, and is the brother of Dayvion Gates, was at the game and said of his memories of his senior night just a couple of years ago, “It feels good and feels like my senior night,” said Dayvon, who is playing at Mt. SAC, which is ranked in the top six of the state this season. “It reminds me of me. He’s (Dayvion) an underdog like I was and reminds me of my journey. Donte (Archie) taught us so much.”