LJ b BB 54, Mater Dei 56 - CIF Division 1 first round

Viking forward Max Raulston (left foreground)
inbounds the ball against Mater Dei, La Jolla
trailing 34-31 in the third quarter.
(Photo by Ed Piper)
 

By Ed Piper

La Jolla showed what it was capable of at full power in its first-round playoff game at Mater Dei Wed., Feb. 13.

Forward Evan Brown and guards Diego and Gabe Solis, all injured in football, had practiced and played enough to regain a lot of their effectiveness after sitting out most of this basketball season.

Only by the skin of their teeth did the sixth-seed Crusaders, with the six clutch free throws of sophomore Melo Sanchez in the last 1:04, pull out a 56-54 win over the 11th-seed Vikings.

Coach Paul Baranowski's La Jollans, with him free to use all his talent for the first time this season, started out rough. They fell behind 19-6 in opening minutes.

But then, after shooting guard Adrian Calderon could be cooled down from a triple three-point frenzy, the Vikes plugged into their latent power to come back to within 21-20 at the end of the second quarter.

The visitors took their first lead, 38-36, on Behzad Hashemi's pull-up three with 9.1 seconds left in the third period.

Diego Solis was a torrid left-handed blur. Just before Hashemi's jumper from the right angle, the sophomore stole the ball on the Crusaders' inbound after Evan Brown's backhanded layup. But Diego ended up on the floor as Mater Dei's guards trapped him in a corner. Baranowski bellowed for a foul call, but none was forthcoming.

Minutes later, Solis was there to put back a blocked Behzad attempt to tie the game 43-43 with 4:53 left. Crusader Jake Tawhiao quickly scored two buckets for a five-point lead, and that set up Sanchez's last-minute heroics.

Just before those, Viking freshman Max Raulston made two steals. After the first, at 1:43, Christian Gamboa could not convert on a jump shot that rimmed the basket with one second left on the shot clock.

Then Raulston surprised the Crusaders with the steal of an inbounds pass, and launched to bank in a shot as he was fouled. Only 1:16 remained. He missed the free throw. At that point, the visitors trailed 52-48.