HUNTINGTON BEACH — Last season, the Kaiser boys basketball team had a 6-22 record and finished last in the San Andreas League.

One year later, the Cats captured the first CIF Southern Section basketball title in school history.

They defeated Diamond Ranch 61-48 in Saturday’s CIF-SS Division 5AA final at Edison High.

Kaiser never trailed in the game and was dominant throughout its five playoff games, winning by an average of 23 points.

“Doing the simple things work,” Kaiser coach Arian Avila said with a chuckle. “All season, we talked about a crazy concept, keeping it simple. They came out and put the ball in the hoops when we needed big shots. I’m so proud of these kids. It’s been a long four years for my senior class and for it to culminate with this is really special.”

Well after the final buzzer, Antonio Camarao still was in shock over winning a CIF-SS title.

“I don’t think the moment has hit us yet,” Camarao said.

The 6-foot-6 forward finished with a game-high 17 points on 6-of-16 shooting from the field.

More impressively, he hauled in 20 rebounds, which was 10 rebounds less than Diamond Ranch’s team total.

“I have been a big man for as long as I can remember,” Camarao said. “It doesn’t come easy, you have to battle to post up, you have to battle your way on rebounding. You have to put 100% effort on every possession and it’s something that I have been working on. … It’s just effort.”

Diamond Ranch coach Kevin Ryan was proud of the way his team fought despite trailing for the majority of the game.

“We fought back in the second half,” Ryan said, “and tried hitting them in the mouth to see what they got. Couldn’t pull it out, however it was an experience we can learn from.”

Both teams got out to a rough start offensively. Diamond Ranch didn’t score until halfway through the first quarter.

Kaiser was able to rattle off 16 points in the final four minutes of the quarter and jumped out to a 34-16 lead at halftime.

“We knew we were going to start off slow,” Avila said. “The moment is big. We’re coming from a 6-22 team last season, we didn’t see a lot of success. So being able to step into this situation…We trust our kids to come in and execute and that’s what they did.”

Diamond Ranch made only 27% of its shots from the field in the first half.

The Panthers began to close the gap in the third quarter. They held the Cats to just two points in the period, and pulled within six points entering the fourth quarter.

“We gave it our all,” Diamond Ranch forward Michael Salazar said. “We just gave it our all, as much as we could.”

Salazar finished with a team-high 14 points and added five rebounds.

In the fourth quarter, Kaiser scored 25 points while shooting 50% from the floor to secure the victory.