BELLFLOWER – The St. John Bosco basketball team remained undefeated Wednesday by beating Fairmont Prep 62-56 in the Bosco Classic.
Christian Collins led the Braves with 18 points and added six assists. Gavin Dean-Moss scored 12 points and Tariq Iscandari had nine, while leading the team in rebounds with six. Howie Wu had two blocks on defense.
Fairmont Prep took advantage of some poor Bosco defending to put a scare into the Braves, who are ranked No. 1 in the Press-Telegram Top 10.
Bosco coach Matt Dunn said the Braves also missed a key defensive player, Max Ellis.
“I thought the whole game we weren’t very good at our responsibilities defensively,” Dunn said. “We played without Max Ellis today, who is really smart and he cleans a lot of that stuff up for us, but missing him for sure. Obviously, we didn’t finish very well at the rim, which their size has something to do with, but we weren’t very good defensively the whole game.”
Fairmont Prep (6-2), ranked No. 4 in Orange County, built a 13-5 lead over the Braves thanks to a well-oiled passing game and 3-pointers by Jacob Hsu and Ryan Guo.
The Huskies’ 6-foot-9 center, David Abisogun, led both teams with 20 points.
Abisogun scored on a dunk and shortly after that Hsu drained a deep, buzzer-beating 3-pointer to give the Huskies an 18-7 lead heading into the second quarter.
Bosco (6-0) stormed back in the second quarter, going on a 13-2 run to take a 22-20 lead on a Dean-Moss layup.
The Braves continued their onslaught thanks to five quick points from Leon Shingo, who put back a rebound and followed that with a 3-point shot on the Braves’ next possession.
The teams became increasingly chippy in the second quarter as each side ramped up the physicality on defense. That resulted in Collins being given a technical foul.
The Braves maintained an eight-point-lead at halftime.
Dunn saw an opportunity against an opponent that didn’t substitute often.
“They were trying to play the whole game with five guys,” Dunn said. “Obviously, foul trouble is part of the game at that point. Give them credit, they are tough to play against and they’re always switching defense so it was hard to get into a rhythm. I’m proud of our guys. I thought we had a good response from a tough first quarter.”
The Braves continued to build their lead in the third quarter thanks to Collins, who dropped 11 points in the frame, including three 3-pointers.
Bosco led by as many as 16 points in the quarter and entered fourth leading 50-36.
Fairmont Prep cut the Bosco lead to 52-44 early in the fourth quarter on five points by Guo and Hsu’s fifth 3-pointer of the game. The Huskies continued to chip away with dominant play by Abisogun, who hit a 3-point shot and followed that with a turnaround jumper on his next opportunity.
Bosco led 52-49 with under four minutes to play.
Fairmont Prep was dealt a blow when Hsu left the game with 2:10 left, favoring his left leg.
Bosco pulled away with 3-pointers by Collins and Iscandari that secured the win.