St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy wins second CIF title in four years
St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy senior guard Tyrone Riley completes a slam dunk in a CIF-Southern Section D 3AA Championship game. PMA defeated La Serna, 79-48, to win the title Saturday. (Photos by Fred Moayed)
ONTARIO — For the second time in four years, the St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy (PMA) High School Boys Basketball team has captured the CIF Championship.
This years’ title was in dominating fashion, as the Warriors defeated La Serna, 79-48 in the Division 3 AA title game at Colony High Saturday (February 25).
In addition, the Warriors advanced to CIF State and won in a first round game Tuesday (Feb. 28) over visiting Westchester, 70-62.
St. Pius-St Matthias played a CIF-State second-round game at Orange Lutheran (21-11) Thursday (March 2) but results were not available at press time.
Last season, the Warriors (30-4) lost to Bishop Diego in the CIF semifinals in Division 3A and were determined to go a step further this year.
“It was amazing to win and win as a family and as a group,” PMA junior guard Tyrone Riley said. “That was our goal and now we have one more goal (to win state).
“It’s a different environment than this (CIF-SS), but I think we’re all ready. We’re young and we have championship game experience under our belt now, so I think we’re ready.”
Ready they were, as they raced out to a 20-10 first-quarter lead over La Serna (27-6) in the CIF D 3AA title game. Riley led the Warriors with eight first-quarter points.
After one of his layups, Riley looked toward his home crowd, which nearly filled one side of the gym and gave a fist pump.
“I feed off of the crowds’ energy during the game. That’s just what I need,” Riley said.
Leading the way for the Warriors was Riley with a game-high 33 points, followed by Langford with 16 and Tylon Williams with nine points.
Sophomore guard Tyriq Bridges had six points.
“When we won Section 7 (summer tournament), that brought us closer and that’s where we grew as a team,” said Langford, who is from Belize. “State was a goal, and this was one step closer to our goal.
“Our coach told us that me and Tyrone had to step up this year. Once we locked in and came together, we saw what we could accomplish and did that.”
La Serna was led by junior guard Gabriel Lewis with 13 points, while senior Marco Montano added 10 (3 3-pointers) and senior guard Daniel Angulo had nine (2 3-pointers).
By halftime, the Warriors had doubled their lead, 42-21. In the last 2:50 of the second quarter, with PMA leading, 31-20, they went on an 11-1 run to end the half.
Riley highlighted it with a dunk to end the half.
Riley and sophomore guard Shaun Fonoimoana had six points each to lead the 19-point third quarter for the Warriors and the 23-point, 61-38, lead.
Early in the fourth quarter, Langford had his moment with a dunk by the 6-8 forward and the 69-38 lead.
One player for PMA, Darrin Poland, Jr., was a member of the team during the first championship and will now have two rings.
“The turning point for this team was the Section 7 tournament in the summer in Arizona,” PMA coach Donte Archie said. “It showed that we could win a game when it really matters in a do or die situation.
“We just had to drill in to our players to take nobody for granted. This week we had a full week to prepare. We went a little harder on them the first couple of days.
“In the beginning we weren’t playing good defense and we let them (La Serna) get to the basket. That’s what we wanted, because we didn’t want them to shoot a lot of threes.”
On the play of Langford and Riley, Archie said: “As long as Doug keeps progressing and keep getting better and better, that’s what we want from him,” he said. “Tyrone is getting better too, but he is coming into his own. They all like each other and like being around each other.”
PMA wins CIF-State first-round game over Westchester
In the opening round of state, Riley (12 rebounds) and junior guard Tylon Williams led with 19 points each, followed by Langford and Bridges (5 rebounds) with 15 and 13 points, respectively. Langford also had 20 rebounds, three blocks and three steals.
Westchester was led by senior Jonathan Choyce with 18 points, while senior Andrew Martin added 13 points.
“We were always on the edge of going over the top,” Archie said of the game against Westchester. “We controlled the game.”
Archie complimented the play of Langford and Williams: “Doug was the catalyst on defense and controlled the game and Tylon (Williams) played big (Tuesday).”
After jumping out to a 20-13 first-quarter lead, the second quarter was virtually even, as
Westchester outscored PMA by a bucket, 17-15 and were only five points down at the half, 35-30.
Westchester outscored PMA in the second half, 35-32.
What they said:
LaTasha Gardner, Tyrone Riley’s mom: “This moment is priceless. My son has this list that he created for his self for his 2023 goals and a CIF Championship was on the top. I think they all came together (Section 7 Summer tournament) and stayed together and communicated with each other and they got to know each other a little bit better.
Before coach (Donte Archie) even knew who Tyrone was, he wanted Tyrone as a player in seventh grade. We were at an AAU tournament at St. Pius and he said, ‘that’s going to be my star player.’”
Terri Langford, Douglas Langford’s mom: “I can tell you that watching the boys grow together is an amazing thing. They have definitely learned to trust each other. They’ve also learned how to hold each other accountable. That’s the most amazing thing in a team sport.
We come from a small country in Central America (Belize) and our son has been gifted an opportunity and he’s been living a dream that so many kids his age have.”
Douglas Langford, PMA sophomore forward: “It was incredible for my mom and dad coming out here for the championship game (from Belize). It’s something that I dreamed about. I begged them and they made it possible to get here.”
Tariq Bridges, PMA sophomore guard: “It means a lot (to win). We put in a lot of work. We’ve had our ups and downs. At the beginning of the season, we had a goal and stuck to it and worked hard. Seeing it be a reality now and that we can go far and we got the ‘chip, it just means a lot.
From a domination standpoint, it’s really defense and coach always tells us in the beginning of the game, our key things have to be defense, aggression and rebounding and the offense will come.”