Isaiah Johnson scores 43 points to push Campbell Hall basketball past Crespi in CIF-SS Division 1 playoffs
STUDIO CITY – Colorado commit Isaiah Johnson scored 43 points and also provided five assists to lead the Campbell Hall boys basketball team to a 79-66 win over top-seeded Crespi in the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs Friday night.
“We watched a whole bunch of film this week,” Johnson said, “so all the coverages I was seeing. it was just natural instinct. And shoutout to my teammates, they allow me to do what I do.”
Campbell Hall will be on the road against Crean Lutheran of Irvine in the quarterfinals Tuesday. Crean defeated Brentwood, 62-52, on Friday.
Campbell Hall avenged a 85-70 loss to Crespi in December in The Classic at Damien tournament.
“He’s incredible, he’s a great talent,” Campbell Hall coach David Grace said about Johnson. “He wills us to win, he’s our leader, and Colorado is getting a good one.”
Crespi jumped out to a 33-28 lead in the first half behind a strong effort from Nevada commit Peyton White and Jayden Xu, who was coming off the bench for the Celts.
Johnson had 18 of the 28 points for the Viking points at halftime.
The Vikings struggled with turnovers in the first half and their starting power forward, Nikita Kochnev, and starting center, James Bass, each had three fouls in the half.
Campbell Hall started off the second half with a 9-0 run to open things up and the Vikings did not look back from there. They outscored Crespi 23-12 in the third quarter to give them a 51-45 lead after three.
The two big men, Kochnev and Bass, were also able to stay out of foul trouble in the second half and both added solid contributions. Kochnev finished the game with nine points and four rebounds and Bass had six points with two rebounds and a block.
“We’ve been challenging our guys all year,” Grace said, “and I really got in them at halftime and we went on a run. And I’m really proud of our group. This is defensive season and you’ve gotta win with defense and we stepped up tonight.”
Crespi was able to cut its deficit to three points with a little under three minutes left behind White — 25 points, four assists with five rebounds — leading the way.
With the Vikings only up three, Johnson started to take the game over once again, driving to the basket and finding Deuce Newt for a couple clutch shots toward the end to help secure the win.
“We take pride in that third quarter,” Johnson said, “and that’s how we’ve been closing out games, just coming right out of the half and getting stops.”
Deuce Newt had 17 points for Campbell Hall off the bench. Carter Barnes had 14 points for Crespi and Christian Tshina-Nzambi finished with eight points and two blocks for the Celts.
Crespi finished the season with a 21-10 record and a fourth-place finish in the Mission League under second year coach and former NBA player Derek Fisher.