Carlmont boys claim program’s first CCS hoops crown

“We knew we could do it, we just had to put everything together,” Carlmont senior Franklin Kuo said. “There were many games where we’ve done really well on just offense or defense, but we knew if we put it together we could beat anyone. Because we played against a lot of the top teams in Nor Cals ... so we knew if we just played together, we’d be able to win.”

Carlmont proved the sum of its parts in a fast and physical game, while being able to do little to nothing to slow Vikings star Jorell Clark. The senior guard went to town for a game-high 37 points, including two clutch 3s in the blistering closing minutes.

“He’s very versatile,” Carlmont head coach John Schrup said. “He’s not a slasher, he’s not necessarily just a shooter. He’s both. So, it’s really just a team effort to try to slow someone like that down. You don’t really stop someone like that. You just try to slow him down the best you can. And we did just enough to get the win tonight.”

Carlmont marksman Camden Ngo responded with a team-high 27 points, eight of them coming in the fourth quarter.

The Scots led throughout the final period, but Clark narrowed it to 60-59 with 50 seconds to play when he rattled home a step-back 3 from the top of the arc. Ngo brought the noise back to the Scots’ side of the floor, though, stepping into a 3 on an inside-out pass up top, and splashing down while drawing the foul to give Carlmont a 63-59 advantage with 33 seconds to go.

“I have faith in him,” Schrup said. “Sometimes he definitely makes my heart stop a little bit. He knows he has the green light to take those shots, because he’s hit those shots time and time again.”

Clark wasn’t done, though, drilling another 3 with 11 seconds to play, closing to within a point. Paly fouled on the inbound pass to send Ngo to the line, and the senior hit both free throws to keep the pressure on the Vikings. When Palo Alto missed two free throws at the other end, Carlmont’s 6-3 sophomore Jordan Rice elbowed and blocked out in a battle with Clark to grab the rebound.

“Jordan Rice, sometimes he jumps and all you can see is his arms, and ... nine times out of 10 in the big moments, he comes down with those rebounds,” Schrup said. “He’s not the strongest, he’s not necessarily the fastest, he’s not the tallest, and he can’t jump the highest, but he just somehow times it and he comes down with that ball, and he doesn’t let anybody take it from him.”

Clark fouled immediately with three seconds to play, and Carlmont leading 65-62, for Rice to take the two biggest free throws of his life. The sophomore missed the first, but didn’t panic. He merely recalibrated his mechanics and went to work putting the win on ice by knocking down the second.

“I felt a little down, but I knew I missed long, so I knew what adjustment I had to make,” Rice said. “It’s just repetition. So, I just did the same thing and it went in.”

Carlmont shot like a championship team, tallying a 51.2% clip from the field. Kuo and senior forward Jeremiah Phillips finished with 14 points apiece, including three big layups by Kuo by exploiting open lanes through the paint early in the fourth quarter.

“We knew there was some matchups that we wanted to take advantage of,” Kuo said. “And with Cam, he’s been shooting the lights out. He was one of the major factors in opening up the lanes. Because with him the floor, they can’t step off. And with [bigs Jeremiah Phillips and Tyler Southworth] and everyone, their being spaced out, it was just everyone else that opened up the lanes for me. I just took advantage of the opportunity.”

But Phillips’ biggest play — perhaps the most critical play of the night — came on the defensive side.

After nine lead changes through the first three quarters, Carlmont senior Josh Lam came off the bench to score his only points near the end of the third with a pull-up, 10-foot jumper to put the Scots ahead 44-42. Kuo’s layups spurred a 9-4 run to open the fourth quarter to steady the scoreboard.

As the wild final quarter unfolded — so wild that Palo Alto head coach Jeff Lamere, a 2024-25 CCS Honor Coach, was slapped with a technical foul early in the fourth — Phillips stole a Palo Alto possession to protect a 60-56 Carlmont lead with 1:11 to play. With Palo Alto working the ball around the perimeter, Phillips pounced when it swung up top toward the sideline, stripping the ball loose and diving to the floor to wrestle it under control as Schrup smartly called a timeout to preserve the turnover possession.

“I just saw Jeremiah playing physical with him, and he’s just so strong and he just ripped the ball away from him,” Rice said. “That’s what he does best is make plays like that.”

The turnovers were even between the two teams 10-10 throughout, while Carlmont had the edge rebounding 26-25.

Palo Alto got six points from senior forward Nicholas Feitzinger, all in an uptempo third quarter in which the Scots outscored the Vikings 20-17. Rice finished with a game-high nine rebounds for Carlmont, while senior center Tyler Southworth added five. Both Phillips and Southworth fouled out in the final minute of the game.

Carlmont had been to just one previous CCS championship game, a 65-36 loss to Bellarmine in 2008-09.

“It means more to see my players accomplish this,” said Schrup, in his first year at the helm after taking over for Ron Ozorio, who ran the program for seven seasons. “Because I know many of the seniors set out for this. For them to reach one of their big goals makes me feel like I did my job.”