Boys Basketball: Alemany nips Notre Dame

Sophomore Jerico Richardson came through with the biggest shot of his career thus far when he made a driving layup with 6.7 seconds remaining to lead Alemany of Mission Hills to a 64-63 victory against Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks in a crucial Mission League game.

Richardson took the ball out of bounds underneath the basket, received the ball back, blew past three defenders and scored with his right hand helping the Warriors (11-15, 7-6) remain in third place behind Harvard-Westlake of North Hollywood and Loyola of Los Angeles and come closer to wrapping up an automatic playoff spot with one game left on Wednesday.

"Coach (Tray Meeks) told me to not waste any time, try and score or score and draw a foul," Richardson said. "I was going to pass it to (Andrew) English but I saw his guy fall back so I took it up myself."

Richardson's basket ended an exciting game that saw Notre Dame battle back from a 15-point deficit in the first half and a seven point deficit in the fourth quarter.

Jordan Fuller and Max Guercy scored 16 and 13 points while Richardson and English both had nine.

Freshman Jahmel Taylor scored 17 points to lead the Knights (14-12, 6-7) and Jeremy Sulker-Hall had 11.

Taylor had a chance to win it at the buzzer but a long range 3-point attempt was partially blocked.

Taylor scored 14 points in the second half and finally gave the Knights their first lead of the game with 3:06 remaining on two free throws.

Notre Dame did it's part battling back and making all eight of it's free throws in the fourth quarter but came up short thanks to Richardson.

The final 3:06 featured two ties and five lead changes as neither team could create distance.

After a slow start to the season against good competition, Alemany is the hottest team in Div. IV-A.

The Warriors have won four games in a row and are looking for more.

"We have a goal to win our last five games before playoffs and we need to win one more," Richardson said. "We are starting to bond and trust one another."