Last year, St. Joseph lost in overtime to Clovis West after a similar regular season.
This year, they made a point to not let it happen again.
"It's definitely the same mentality no matter what team is in front of us," senior Luis Marin said. "But it definitely put a chip on our shoulder so it was definitely a motivation in everyone's head."
It was a balanced scoring attack from the Knights with five players scoring in double figures including Luis Marin who had a team-high 18 points. Sophomore Tounde Yessoufou and freshman Julian Price stepped up chipping in 16 points a piece while Caedin Hamilton dropped in 14 down low and senior Darian Mensah scoring 10 off the bench.
St. Joseph reclaims a Central Section championship after winning it back in the 2020-2021 season.
"It was really emotional," Marin said. "This has been really hard. Lots of ups and downs, very low downs, so it was great to finally have some success and just be able to see the results."
Both teams await their fate on Sunday to see who they will match up against in the CIF state tournament.
