Angels’ Jo Adell putting the ‘step’ back in his swing

• March 1, 2025

TEMPE, Ariz. — After finishing the 2024 season with a mechanical change that led to an encouraging performance, Jo Adell is experimenting again.

A day after Adell hit a grand slam using the leg kick that he abandoned for the final two months of last season, he said he’s bringing it back. At least, some of the time.

Adell said he’s made the change with the blessing of hitting coaches Johnny Washington and Tim Laker.

“Part of hitting is decision making, but the other part is how athletic you’re going to be in the box,” Adell said Saturday. “Johnny Washington and Tim Laker have been huge about, whatever you’ve got to do to bring out the athlete when you’re playing, when you’re in the box, that’s what’s going to give you your best chance.”

Adell went on to say “nothing is set in stone,” and he may revert to the toe tap occasionally, perhaps because of the way he sees a certain pitcher or when he gets behind in the count.

Adell referred to Zach Neto, who has a much larger leg kick at times, but switches to a toe tap on a case-by-case basis.

Manager Ron Washington said he also approved of Adell’s change.

“That’s called an adjustment,” Washington said. “Sometimes you make adjustments and it works for a few minutes, and then you’ve got to make another adjustment. That’s an adjustment he made yesterday on his own, and hopefully it will continue to work for a little bit. When it doesn’t work any more, you’ve got to make another adjustment.”

Adell, 25, was once considered one of the top prospects in the sport, but was unable to find consistent success his first few years in the majors. There were flashes of power, along with plenty of strikeouts and a low batting average.

Adell was hitting .192 with a .648 OPS in late July last season, using a swing in which he lifted his front foot a few inches as he prepared to swing.

“I wouldn’t really call it a kick,” Adell said. “It’s more of a lift, or something like a step.”

Whatever the label, Adell stopped doing it July 30, instead keeping his toe on the ground and lifting his heel. He hit a homer that night. He kept the toe tap for the rest of the season. Over the final 34 games, Adell hit .248 with five homers and a .771 OPS. An oblique injury in early September ended the trial.

Now, Adell is fighting for playing time with Mickey Moniak. It’s a question of whether he can play center field – with Mike Trout moving to right – but also of whether he can be the offensive player he was at the end of the season, and not the beginning.

Washington said Adell came into camp looking too passive and mechanical. He was too focused on swing decisions, so he was taking pitches he should hit.

Washington had a chat with Adell after he started the spring 0 for 9, and told Adell to “let it fly.”

“He’s never going to be a hitter that’s going to control the strike zone,” Washington said “He’s not one of those hitters. He’s a guy to see the ball and swing, and he has to rely on his eyes to know what not to swing at. That’s what I was trying to get him to do.”

SILSETH’S SPLITTER

Right-hander Chase Silseth had his splitter working exceptionally well in Friday night’s outing against the Dodgers. He struck out six in 2⅔ innings, five of them with the splitter.

“It’s one of those pitches that it’s lethal when I get ahead,” Silseth said. “But when I’m behind in counts, like you saw on the first inning (of the previous game), we couldn’t get to it. Just one of those things that when you’re not getting ahead of guys, it tends to not go well.”

Silseth also was able to land a couple of splitters for called strikes against the Dodgers, which is an encouraging sign.

“Normally it’s a chase pitch, and I’m trying to get a swing and miss,” Silseth said. “But being able to get it in the zone, and get some people looking at it, that just makes it more dangerous.”

NOTES

Right-hander Jack Kochanowicz came through Friday’s simulated game well, Washington said. Kochanowicz had missed time with an illness. He’s now scheduled to start Tuesday. “You could see he was weak, but at least he got a chance to find out where his stamina is and know that he’s OK,” Washington said. “Now he can get back to doing what he’s doing to get his stamina back.” …

Washington said he’s been impressed so far with Niko Kavadas’ work on the defensive side, but they’d like him to be more aggressive at the plate. “He has a good eye, but he doesn’t allow his power to surface because he’s too busy worried about having a good eye,” Washington said. “This is spring training, so let it fly. Once we get into the season and you’ve got 30, 40, 50 at-bats, you can start locking in to your strike zone. But down here, man, you’ve got to swing the bat. We’re starting to get him to start swinging the bat.”

​ Orange County Register 

Galaxy start ‘tricky’ 7-game month at Vancouver

• March 1, 2025

The calendar has turned to March and it’s going to be a busy one for the Galaxy.

Starting Sunday in Vancouver, the Galaxy’s March schedule holds seven games, including a trip to Costa Rica for the start of CONCACAF Champions Cup on Wednesday against Herediano

First is a chance to rally from their MLS season-opening loss against San Diego FC.

“This is an opportunity to respond and bounce back,” midfielder Edwin Cerrillo said of Sunday’s meeting with Vancouver. “We have an opportunity to go out there and really fight and compete and give it 110 percent. I felt disappointed the last game. I’m a person that gives it my all, which I did, but ultimately we play soccer to win games and to have that feeling after not losing at home for so long, still stings to this day, really, and I’m looking forward to getting out there on the field and to show our fans that we’re here to compete again this year.”

As for the busy schedule, players always say they like to play, rather than train. Here are the playing dates this month: Sunday in Vancouver, Wednesday in Costa Rica, March 9 and 12 at home, March 16 in Portland, March 22 in Minnesota, and back home March 29.

“Rest and recovery,” Cerrillo said. “We have to depend on everybody, who’s in and around this team.

“That’s why you play soccer, you want to play in as many games as you can and we want play in these competitions, which is a good thing. We’re coming off of a good year, which puts us in Champions League where it was a goal for us. Now we have to deal with the travel, just means we have to rest and recover and communicate a lot with our training staff and find the best way to mentally and physically prepare for the next game.”

The Whitecaps are also coming off a busy start, having won their Champions Cup opening series against Saprissa and kicking off the MLS season with a 4-1 rout last week against the Portland Timbers.

“We didn’t meet the occasion,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said of last week’s defeat. “It doesn’t define us, it just shows us the things we need to work on. This is going to be a little bit of a work in progress as we settle some guys in and make up for some of attacking pieces we have to get settled into our group to become ultimately dangerous in the final action.

“I was a little surprised because some of the things that we saw on Sunday in the game weren’t things that were showing themselves in preseason. I thought they came out a little bit inside of the game, so maybe that’s the pressure of the moment, I don’t know, but it’s something that we certainly need to settle in on and improve. We will build. You don’t repeat as champions on Game One, though you want to have a good showing. You repeat as champions by building through the course of the season and being in your best form.”

Vanney had to balance league and CONCACAF competitions back when he with Toronto FC.

The Galaxy will head straight to Costa Rica following Sunday’s game in Vancouver.

“It’s busy, but this is what we’re here for,” Vanney said. “We have to be solution-oriented. Try to find the right ways that we can balance our roster out for the two games, approach each game one at a time, see how the guys are recovering, see what the repercussions for being on a play for 9-10 hours going down (to Costa Rica) are going to be and just try to approach it one at a time. We have a larger plan for the two weeks, but we will also have to reassess after each game and make sure we’re moving where we want to be moving. It’s tricky.”

Galaxy at Vancouver Whitecaps

When: 11 a.m. Sunday

Where: BC Place, Vanouver, British Columbia

How to watch: Apple TV+ (MLS Season Pass)

​ Orange County Register 

David Johansen, singer from the seminal punk band the New York Dolls, dies at 75

• March 1, 2025

By Mark Kennedy | Associated Press

NEW YORK — David Johansen, the wiry, gravelly-voiced singer and last surviving member of the glam and protopunk band the New York Dolls who later performed as his campy, pompadoured alter ego, Buster Poindexter, has died. He was 75.

Johansen died Friday at his home in New York City, Jeff Kilgour, a family spokesperson told The Associated Press. It was revealed in early 2025 that he had stage 4 cancer and a brain tumor.

The New York Dolls were forerunners of punk and the band’s style — teased hair, women’s clothes and lots of makeup — inspired the glam movement that took up residence in heavy metal a decade later in bands like Faster Pussycat and Mötley Crüe.

“When you’re an artist, the main thing you want to do is inspire people, so if you succeed in doing that, it’s pretty gratifying,” Johansen told The Knoxville News-Sentinel in 2011.

‘Mutant children of the hydrogen age’

Rolling Stone once called the Dolls “the mutant children of the hydrogen age” and Vogue called them the “darlings of downtown style, tarted-up toughs in boas and heels.”

“The New York Dolls were more than musicians; they were a phenomenon. They drew on old rock ‘n’ roll, big-city blues, show tunes, the Rolling Stones and girl groups, and that was just for starters,” Bill Bentley wrote in “Smithsonian Rock and Roll: Live and Unseen.”

The band never found commercial success and was torn by internal strife and drug addictions, breaking up after two albums by the middle of the decade. In 2004, former Smiths frontman and Dolls admirer Morrissey convinced Johansen and other surviving members to regroup for the Meltdown Festival in England, leading to three more studio albums.

In the ’80s, Johansen assumed the persona of Buster Poindexter, a pompadour-styled lounge lizard who had a hit with the kitschy party single “Hot, Hot, Hot” in 1987. He also appeared in such movies as “Candy Mountain,” “Let It Ride,” “Married to the Mob” and had a memorable turn as the Ghost of Christmas Past in Bill Murray-led hit “Scrooged.”

Johansen was in 2023 the subject of Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s documentary “Personality Crisis: One Night Only,” which mixed footage of his two-night stand at the Café Carlyle in January 2020 with flashbacks through his wildly varied career and intimate interviews.

“I used to think about my voice like: ‘What’s it gonna sound like? What’s it going to be when I do this song?’ And I’d get myself into a knot about it,” Johansen told The Associated Press in 2023. “At some point in my life, I decided: ‘Just sing the (expletive) song. With whatever you got.’ To me, I go on stage and whatever mood I’m in, I just claw my way out of it, essentially.”

Named after a toy hospital

David Roger Johansen was born to a large, working-class Catholic family on Staten Island, his father an insurance salesman. He filled notebooks with poems and lyrics as a young man and liked a lot of different music — R&B, Cuban, Janis Joplin and Otis Redding.

The Dolls — the final original lineup included guitarists Sylvain Sylvain and Johnny Thunders, bassist Arthur Kane and drummer Jerry Nolan — rubbed shoulders with Lou Reed and Andy Warhol in the Lower East Side of Manhattan the early 1970s.

They took their name from a toy hospital in Manhattan and were expected to take over the throne vacated by the Velvet Underground in the early 1970s. But neither of their first two albums — 1973’s “New York Dolls,” produced by Todd Rundgren, nor “Too Much Too Soon” a year later produced by Shadow Morton — charted.

“They’re definitely a band to keep both eyes and ears on,” read the review of their debut album in Rolling Stone, complementary of their “strange combination of high pop-star drag and ruthless street arrogance.”

Their songs included “Personality Crisis” (“You got it while it was hot/But now frustration and heartache is what you got”), “Looking for a Kiss” (I need a fix and a kiss”) and a “Frankenstein” (Is it a crime/For you to fall in love with Frankenstein?”)

Their glammed look was meant to embrace fans with a nonjudgmental, noncategorical space. “I just wanted to be very welcoming,” Johansen said in the documentary, “’cause the way this society is, it was set up very strict — straight, gay, vegetarian, whatever… I just kind of wanted to kind of like bring those walls down, have a party kind of thing.”

Rolling Stone, reviewing their second album, called them “the best hard-rock band in America right now” and called Johansen a “talented showman, with an amazing ability to bring characters to life as a lyricist.”

Decades later, the Dolls’ influence would be cherished. Rolling Stone would list their self-titled debut album at No. 301 of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, writing “it’s hard to imagine the Ramones or the Replacements or a thousand other trash-junky bands without them.”

Blondie’s Chris Stein in the Nolan biography “Stranded in the Jungle” wrote that the Dolls were “opening a door for the rest of us to walk through.” Tommy Lee of Motley Crue called them early inspirations.

“Johansen is one of those singers, to be a little paradoxical, who is technically better and more versatile than he sounds,” said the Los Angeles Times in 2023. “His voice has always been a bit of a foghorn — higher or lower according to age, habits and the song at hand — but it has a rare emotional urgency.”

‘Dirty angels with painted faces’

The Dolls, representing rock at it’s most debauched, were divisive. In 1973, they won the Creem magazine poll categories as the year’s best and worst new group. They were nominated several times for The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame but never got in.

“Dirty angels with painted faces, the Dolls opened the box usually reserved for Pandora and unleashed the infant furies that would grow to become Punk,” wrote Nina Antonia in the book “Too Much, Too Soon.” “As if this legacy wasn’t enough for one band, they also trashed sexual boundaries, savaged glitter and set new standards for rock ‘n’ roll excess.”

By the end of their first run, the Dolls were being managed by legendary promoter Malcolm McLaren, who would later introduce the Sex Pistols to the Dolls’ music. Culture critic Greil Marcus in “Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century” writes the Dolls played him some of their music and he couldn’t believe how bad they were. “The fact that they were so bad suddenly hit me with such force that I began to realize, ”I’m laughing, I’m talking to these guys, I’m looking at them, and I’m laughing with them’; and I was suddenly impressed by the fact that I was no longer concerned with whether you could play well,” McLaren said. “The Dolls really impressed upon me that there was something else. There was something wonderful. I thought how brilliant they were to be this bad.”

After the first demise of the Dolls, Johansen started his own group, the David Johansen band, before reinventing himself yet again in the 1980s as Buster Poindexter.

Inspired by his passion for the blues and arcane American folk music Johansen also formed the group The Harry Smiths, and toured the world performing the songs of Howlin’ Wolf with Hubert Sumlin and Levon Helm. He also hosted the weekly radio show “The Mansion of Fun” on Sirius XM and painted.

He is survived by his wife, Mara Hennessey, and a stepdaughter, Leah Hennessey.

​ Orange County Register 

Well-trained ‘true mutt’ PJ loves to play and learn

• March 1, 2025

Breed: A “true mutt” mix of many breeds, primarily Chihuahua

Age: 3 years

Sex: Neutered male

Size: 35 pounds

PJ’s story: PJ is looking for adopters who can be consistent in his training, have a yard and either don’t have a dog or have a confident, well-adjusted one. PJ is working hard to build his confidence and needs someone to continue to help him grow. He’s an athletic boy who enjoys playing fetch and tug. He also loves his food and treats, especially when there’s a game involved such as finding treats hidden in another room, a puzzle toy or pressing a button to release kibble from a slow feeder. When it’s time to relax, PJ wants belly rubs, then curls up under a blanket nearby for a snooze. He prefers to be with you 24/7 and is observant and learns quickly. He knows sit, both paws, and stay and is working on place, break and heel. He has a strong prey drive, especially with birds and squirrels, but is doing very well learning to leave it when he sees them.  PJ is microchipped and up-to-date on vaccinations. His adoption fee is sponsored, so no cost for his adopters.

Adoption procedure: If you’re interested in meeting or adopting Star Bright, please fill out the adoption application on Leashes of Love’s website. A phone interview, meet and greet and home check are required.

​ Orange County Register 

Orange County scores and player stats for Saturday, March 1

• March 1, 2025

Support our high school sports coverage by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribe now

Scores and stats from Orange County games on Saturday, March 1

Click here for details about sending your team’s scores and stats to the Register.

The deadline for submitting information is 10:45 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 p.m. Saturday.

SATURDAY’S SCORES

BOYS BASKETBALL

CIF-SS PLAYOFFS

Championship finals

DIVISION 4AA

Santiago/GG 64, Ramona 49

San: De La Mora 28 pts (4 3-ptrs). Baude 12 pts. 7 reb. Guidry 10 pts, 6 reb.

GIRLS BASKETBALL

CIF-SS PLAYOFFS

Championship finals

DIVISION 5AA

Hillcrest 39, Santa Ana 36

SA: Diaz 15 pts (5 3-ptrs). Solis 10 pts. Silva 9 reb.

Hill: Boulware 10 pts, 15 reb., 6 blks, 4 stls. Jackson 11 reb.

GIRLS SOCCER

CIF-SS PLAYOFFS

Championship finals

DIVISION 4

Sage Hill 0, La Mirada 0 (Sage wins on PK’s, 4-3)

BASEBALL

FIVE TOOLS FESTIVAL

At Dallas, TX

Mater Dei 1, Magnolia Heights (TX) 0

MD: Campbell (W, 5IP 0R). Gerken GW RBI sac fly.

SOFTBALL

HB & PACIFICA FIRST PITCH TOURNAMENT

Huntington Beach 8, El Segundo 7

Millikan 5, Los Alamitos 1

Pacifica 5, Gahr 4

Norco 6, Los Alamitos 5

CYPRESS TOURNAMENT

Cypress 3, Villa Park 1

Granada Hills Charter 17, Irvine 6

Granada Hills Charter 2, Kennedy 1

MAYFAIR / ST. JOSEPH TOURNAMENT

Katella 12, St. Monica 7

SAVANNA SHOWCASE

Southlands Christian 6, Ocean View 3

Sonora 11, Long Beach Wilson 6

Mission Viejo 8, Long Beach Wilson 7

Fullerton 5, Whittier Christian 1

Segerstrom 7, Schurr 6

Capistrano Valley 16, Newport Harbor 1

Rosary 1, Marina 0

Canyon 3, Rosary 2

Newport Harbor 9, Buena Park 3

St. Paul 9, Esperanza 1

Whittier Christian 10, El Dorado 4

Oxford Academy 4, Southlands Christian 3

Fullerton 5, Warren 1

NONLEAGUE

Esperanza 8, Yorba Linda 0

Ontario Christian 14, Crean Lutheran 0

​ Orange County Register 

Tyronn Lue says struggling Clippers are ‘in a good spot’

• March 1, 2025

LOS ANGELES — Coach Tyronn Lue said the Clippers are ready for the challenge ahead, the slew of top teams that they face over the remaining 23 games of the regular season.

“It’s the tough part of our schedule. We play a lot of good teams, a lot of games this last month and a half,” Lue said Friday. “We’re slowly starting to get healthy and the guys we acquired, we just got to continue to get them up to speed.

“But I like where we’re at and it’s in our hands. So, we’re in a good spot, we’re in a good place and now we just got to start building off of it.”

Sunday’s final game this season against the Lakers would be another chance to start building toward the playoffs. The Clippers, who have lost four of their past five games, missed that opportunity in a bumbling 106-102 loss to the Lakers at Crypto.com Arena on Friday, leaving them hanging onto a playoff spot.

Their 32-27 record is equal with the surging Golden State Warriors for the No. 6 spot in the Western Conference, five games behind the Houston Rockets, who sit at No. 5. The Clippers need to play with a sense of urgency and solve their turnovers if they want to avoid a Play-In spot, characteristics that were missing Friday night.

The Clippers resorted to bad habits Friday night. They were careless with the ball, resulting in 17 turnovers, many of them coming in the final minutes. They missed 48 shots, 28 of 37 from 3-point range and failed to contain the Lakers, who were without starters Rui Hachimura (knee) and Austin Reaves (calf).

At the center was James Harden, who seemed listless after logging nearly 40 minutes a game recently while the team got healthy. That might have explained the six turnovers and 1-for-10 shooting from the perimeter and 5 of 22 overall.

The Clippers need Harden to remain at the top of his game as the season heads into the final stretch, and center Ivica Zubac as well.

The former Laker had another big game with a season-high 27 points and 16 rebounds, well above his season averages of 15.5 points and 12.6 rebounds. Yet, he could see where the Clippers slipped against the Lakers.

“In the first half, we gave up seven offensive rebounds or whatever,” he said, adding that allowing offensive boards can be difficult when teams are switching often. The Lakers had LeBron James and Luka Doncic on Zubac at times.

“So, when I contest the shots, I can’t really help rebounding. That’s where we got to turn and check good bodies, box out, go get the ball, there’s nothing else to it. So that hurt.

“Transition points, too, when they leak out and (turn into) turnovers. It’s been an issue for us and that’s something we got to get better at.”

The Clippers can’t afford many more slip-ups.

Lue is pinning his postseason hopes on the team getting healthy and having newcomers Bogdan Bogdanovic and Ken Simmons get up to speed. Norman Powell, the team’s leading scorer at 24.2 points a game, has missed five games because of a sore knee but could be back soon.

Lue said Powell played through the soreness before the All-Star break, but the shooting guard needed to switch the medical treatment he was receiving.

“But like I said, he’s getting close, and he’s been doing the things needed to try to get back on the floor and so hopefully sooner than later.,” Lue said.

MILLER GETS NEW DEAL

The Clippers reportedly are converting two-way guard Jordan Miller to a standard contract and will reportedly sign him for three years, $8.3 million. ESPN’s Shams Charania was the first to report the signing.

The 2023 second-rounder has been a standout for the Clippers’ G League team this season, averaging 23.9 points in seven games. His play has earned him minutes with the NBA team, where Miller has averaged 4.7 points, 1.7 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 30 games.

To make room for Miller on the roster, the Clippers waived MarJon Beauchamp, who was acquired from the Milwaukee Bucks in the Kevin Porter Jr. trade. The team also is expected to waive little-used center Kai Jones and sign G League players Seth Lundy and Patrick Baldwin Jr. to two-way contracts.

Clippers at Lakers

When: 6:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Crypto.com Arena

TV/radio: FDSNSC/AM 570

​ Orange County Register 

Hillcrest girls basketball team holds off Santa Ana, wins Division 5AA title

• March 1, 2025

HUNTINGTON BEACH — Chloe Wells is a coaching rookie, but she knows what takes to be a champion.

As a high school player, Wells helped the Miller girls basketball program wins back-to-back CIF Southern Section championships.

Wells played overseas for a decade but decided to put the ball down and start her coaching career. She landed at Hillcrest in September and orchestrated a turnaround.

Hillcrest went 7-20 last season, but the Trojans now can call themselves champions after beating Santa Ana 39-36 in the Division 5AA title game Saturday morning at Edison High School.

“God led me here to this school,” Wells said. “When I got here, their heads and shoulders were down, but I saw the greatness in them.

“I call them the comeback kids. To come back from a season like that and overcome adversity at every stop, it has been the time of my life. I’m so proud of their hard work and belief in each other.”

Santa Ana (15-13) overcame obstacles to get to this point, as well, including a coaching change during the middle of the season.

The Saints started Saturday morning’s final on the right foot, scoring the first four points of the contest. Santa Ana was unable to keep that momentum going, however, and made only 9 of 50 shots (18 percent) from the field.

“I’m proud of the girls but we just fell short today,” Saints coach Dana Nguyen said. “We had trouble scoring.”

Hillcrest (21-6) only made 1 of 17 attempts during the opening quarter, but the score was knotted at 7 going into the second period.

The Trojans put together a 10-0 run during the second quarter to take their first lead of the game. Raylene Valadez knocked down a 3-pointer and Zoey Boulware had a putback to lead that charge. Hillcrest took an 18-14 lead into the locker room at halftime.

Hillcrest opened the second half with a 9-4 run to push the lead to nine points. Valadez sank another 3-pointer to kickstart the run and dished a ball to Alexandra Sanchez for an uncontested layup to finish it.

Valadez scored a team-high 14 points for the Trojans in Saturday’s championship game.

“I made my first (3-pointer) then missed a few,” said Valadez, who missed last season with an ACL injury. “You just have to have a mentality that the next one is going in.”

Santa Ana kept battling, thanks in large part to the shooting of Yarexy Diaz. She drained three 3-pointers in the third quarter and finished with a game-high 15 points.

“It felt great making those shots,” said Diaz, who sank 5 of 8 attempts beyond the arc.

Boulware finished the game with 10 points, 15 rebounds, six blocks and four steals. Her putback gave Hillcrest a 35-24 lead with 4 1/2 minutes in the contest.

Santa Ana made one final comeback attempt. Jazmine Solis sank a big 3-pointer, helping the Saints trim the deficit to three points in the final minute.

Hillcrest made only 4 of 12 free throws down the stretch. Santa Ana had an opportunity to tie things up, but Cynthia Silva’s 3-pointer from the top of the arc drew iron. And time eventually ran out on the Saints.

Amaya Branchcomb score eight points for Hillcrest, and Za’Nylah Jackson finished with 11 rebounds off the bench.

Solis scored 10 points for Santa Ana, and Silva led the Saints with nine rebounds.

Both teams will begin play in the CIF State playoff beginning Tuesday.

​ Orange County Register 

Jorden De La Mora leads Santiago boys basketball to its first CIF-SS championship

• March 1, 2025

ONTARIO – High school basketball teams usually do not shoot well from outside in large arenas.

Santiago shot 56 percent on 3-point shots Saturday at Toyota Arena en route to a 64-49 win over Ramona in the CIF Southern Section Division 4AA boys basketball championship game.

The Cavaliers won their first CIF championship in the sport in their first boys basketball championship game.

“If you don’t shoot with confidence,” said Santiago’s Jorden De La Mora, “it’s not going to go in.”

Santiago shot with confidence and made 9 of 16 3-point attempts. On all shots Santiago was 22 of 45 (49%).

De La Mora, a 6-2 senior guard, scored a game-high 28 points. He was 8 of 17 on all shots and 4 of 6 on 3s. De La Mora was outstanding throughout the playoffs, scoring 61 points over Santiago’s wins in the quarterfinals and semifinals.

Santiago’s Jayden Baude, also a 6-2 senior guard, scored 12 points with a team-high seven rebounds. Cavaliers 6-4 senior forward Jerell Guidry scored 10 points with six rebounds.

Two important baskets for Santiago were scored by others on the team. With Ramona having sliced the Santiago lead to seven points with under two minutes remaining, Cavaliers 5-6 senior Anthony Bermudez made a 3-pointer as did senior forward Diego Bracamonte seconds later to get the lead to 13 points.

Bermudez finished with six points, Bracamonte with eight.

Ramona shot 30 percent from the floor and 15 percent on 3-point tries.

Santiago (22-11) and Ramona (26-7) continue the season with the CIF Southern California Regional playoffs that begin Tuesday. The regional brackets will be released Sunday.

The Cavaliers finished third in the six-team Coast League. Their first playoff opponent was Coast League champion Los Amigos, which had beaten Santiago by 11 points and 10 points in league games. Santiago beat its league rival 45-42 in the 4AA first round.

“Somehow we just kept winning,” said Santiago coach Matt Moorhouse, in his eighth year in charge of the team.

Santiago started Saturday’s game strong. De La Mora scored 10 points in the first quarter and the Cavaliers had a 22-10 lead going into the second quarter.

The Cavaliers led by as many as 16 points in the second quarter, answering every Ramona surge with clutch baskets. It was 35-23 at halftime.

A 3 by De La Mora put Santiago on top 40-23 early in the third quarter. Ramona put together an 11-2 run late in the quarter to make it 42-34. De La Mora then made a deep 3 to give the Cavaliers a 45-34 lead going into the final quarter.

Santiago’s 15-point win was its largest margin of victory of their five playoff games.

​ Orange County Register