LAKEWOOD - It's way too early in the playoffs to say whose going to be named the Player of the Year in I-AA, but on Friday night, Mayfair High boy's basketball player Jonathan Wills made a good opening argument on his behalf. The senior forward had 20 points, seven rebounds and senior guard Bryan Emanuel scored 19 as the Monsoons began the CIF Southern Section Division I-AA playoffs by beating Lakewood 64-41 in a first-round game at Mayfair High. "It's a city rivalry and I was fired up tonight," Wills said.
"We don't play them often but when we do, it's big. The key for us tonight was boxing out. They were getting too many second shots opportunities in the first half and in the second, we had to cut that out.
"But out only goal tonight was to make sure we practiced on Saturday and we did that. Now, it's on to the next round. We don't really care who our opponent is.
As long as we come to play, we can compete with anybody." The Monsoons (20-6) will next play the winner of the Chaminade/Mission Viejo game 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday in the second round. Mayfair jumped all over the Lancers (13-14) right from the get go, taking a 10-0 lead after Wills scored the first six points of the game and Emanuel
The Lancers went into halftime down 23-19 and after Rembert scored again in the opening moments of the third quarter, Mayfair's lead was down to just one point. However, that's when Wills took over the game. He made back-to-back 3-pointers to push the Monsoons lead back up to 29-21 and after an Emanuel dunk with 1:54 to go in the third quarter, Mayfair's lead was 39-26.
The Monsoons went into the third quarter up 42-29 and their lead only grew after that as Terryn Clark scored a basket and Wendell Wright scored four straight of his own to give Mayfair a 19-point advantage with 6:41 left in the game. "We made some adjustments at halftime and we went on several big runs that put the game away," Monsoons coach Brian VanderWal said. "We played well in the second half and I think we slowly wore them down.
"I'm telling you, I just love these guys. They play so hard every night out and what else can you say about the way Jonathan and Bryan played tonight. They were super and they're great leaders.
I can't wait to watch them again on Tuesday night.
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