
Juilus Price (left) and Tounde Yessoufou both had strong outings on Saturday night to help state No. 4 St. Joseph of Santa Maria get past No. 9 Salesian of Richmond. Photo: Harold Abend.
The matchup between Cal-Hi Sports No. 4 St. Joseph of Santa Maria and No. 9 Salesian of Richmond had more than one storyline and some twists and turns in the featured high school game on Saturday at the 10th Annual Crush in the Valley Basketball Showcase at Contra Costa College in San Pablo.
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Saturday night’s featured contest at the Crush in the Valley Basketball Showcase had its career state record implications, but it was not what was first and foremost on the minds of the players. It not only pitted two one-loss teams coming into the game ranked at No. 4 and No. 9 the Cal-Hi Sports State TOP 30 rankings, but also the last two CIF Northern Regional Open Division champions.
St. Joseph won the NorCal crown in 2023 and Salesian took it last season before both squads fell to Harvard-Westlake of Studio City in the state championship.
The game also was another steppingstone in the quest for career scoring supremacy for Baylor-bound St. Joseph 6-foot-6 senior forward Tounde Yessoufou.
In the end, it was all St. Joseph (22-1) with Yessoufou leading the way in a 76-67 victory.
Yessoufou was named the Player of the Game after finishing with 23 points, seven rebounds, four assists, three blocks and two steals.
In the process, Tounde vaulted himself into the No. 2 spot for all time career scoring according to the Cal-Hi Sports Online Record Book.
His first points came on a three-pointer that gave St. Joseph a 5-2 lead. The next basket put the Knights up 9-6, and the basket that tied Yessoufou with current NBA G League star Jarod Lucas (3,356 points at Hacienda Heights Los Altos 2016-2019) put St. Joseph up 16-11 in a game where the Knights never trailed and were only tied once at 2-2.

Darnell Robinson from Emery of Emeryville led team past Brethren Christian for 1993 CIF D5 state title. Photo: Cal-Hi Sports archives.
Yessoufou scored to make it 20-11 leaving him at 3,359 and tied for No. 2 all time, and then with 2:52 left in the half Tounde dropped in two free throws to give him 3,361 career points and with the free throws he passed legendary Darnell Robinson, who had 3,359 career points at Emeryville Emery from 1990-1993.
The answers from Yousoufou, who hails from Benin, were short and simple, but his smile was infectious. “Yes, I have,” replied Tounde with a big smile when asked if he has been following the scoring record. “No, I don’t,” was his response with the same smile when asked if he heard of Robinson or former Duke star DeMarcus Nelson (Sacramento Sheldon 2004), who Yessoufou will almost assuredly pass if he scores 92 more points.
“Oh yes, he knows about the scoring record but he could care less,” St. Joseph head coach Tom Mott remarked. “He just wants to win games. He’d rather win games than score 40. That’s what he does.
“The record will come when it comes, but right now he and the team are focused on winning a state championship,” Mott continued.
Tounde earned all 23 of his points against a tough Salesian defense and mainly the work of Yale-bound Alvin Loving.
The free throws that passed Robinson stretched the St. Joseph lead to 30-18 but Salesian came fighting back with a 12-3 run to tie it at 39-39 midway through the third quarter. However, the Knights answered by outscoring the Pride 14-6 the remainder of the third and at 53-45 the momentum had swung back to St. Joseph. Although Salesian scored on a basket to open the fourth that cut the lead to 53-47, St. Joseph went on an 11-2 run on three three-pointers by junior Gunner Morinini and a basket by junior Julius Price on a feed from Tounde, and although Salesian fought hard to the final buzzer, at 64-49 the game was pretty much decided.
St. Joseph also got 16 points, eight assists and three rebounds from Swedish native Price, and Morinini added 14 points including 4-of-5 on three-pointers.
Yessoufou did have to work hard for his points but like Price he was a distributor as evidenced by his assists.
“Obviously Tounde gets his points, but he was a playmaker tonight,” Mott said. “When he’s in playmaker mode he’s really tough to stop because he draws so much attention to him, and it frees up some guys to get some shots like Gunner.”
“Our big guy Matas (Siskauskas) was huge for us tonight as well and it was a collective team effort,” Mott continued.
Siskauskas was 5-for-5 from the field and finished with 10 points.
Salesian (19-2) was led by junior Elias Obenyah with 20 points, seven rebounds, five steals and two assists, and junior Carlton Perrilliat Jr., who also had 20 points. Loving was held to seven points and four rebounds.
“Salesian is a team with a ton of different options and they’re hard to stop, but we have a lot of options to stop,” Mott said. “It was a battle of two good teams tonight and we were lucky to come out on top.”
St. Joseph now heads back to Santa Maria to resume Mountain League action where it is currently 5-0 and won’t break a sweat until the playoffs. The Knights do have a home game on Saturday with a Weston Ranch (Stockton) team that was a 70-50 winner over Vallejo St. Patrick-St. Vincent in the nightcap of Saturday’s action at the Crush in the Valley and it’s very likely that Tounde will break the state record in next Saturday’s game at home. The following game after that will be on the road. Both of the next two games also will be on the road.
Salesian will need to re-group and will continue play Tri-County Athletic League – Rock Division where the Pride are currently 8-0 and should have an easy time heading into the CIF North Coast Section playoffs.
The big question among the media at the Crush in the Valley was will the CIF place St. Joseph in the north for the regional playoffs like two years ago, making a re-match with Salesian a possibility, or will the Knights be sent to the Southern Region. After they were upset in last year’s CIF Central Section D1 final by Clovis North (which also played in Saturday’s Crush in the Valley event and had a win vs Vanden of Fairfield), the Knights went to the south.
It is clearly a case of the CIF needing to balance out the north and south brackets compared to a preference of not wanting Santa Maria/San Luis Obispo area teams in the north due to travel issues. When St. Joseph won its NorCal title two years ago, it was not as a top seed and had to travel itself after a bye to play at Dougherty Valley of San Ramon and then at Modesto Christian. If there is ever a time when the team will deserve to get a top seed and play home games (despite the travel issues for the other teams), it is going to be this season and that’s why Saturday’s win over Salesian was so important.
Harold Abend is the associate editor of CalHiSports.com and the vice president of the California Prep Sportswriters Association. He can be reached at marketingharoldabend@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter: @HaroldAbend