LJ b BB: 'What if?'

Coach Paul Baranowski sketches out a play
on his dry erase board during a timeout
in the second quarter against the Crusaders.
(Photo by Ed Piper)
 

By Ed Piper

La Jolla's narrow 56-54 first-round loss to Mater Dei, during which the Vikings led 41-39 early in the fourth quarter, had to make a Viking observer ponder: What if?

 

What if Coach Paul Baranowski's squad had had Diego Solis, Gabe Solis, and Evan Brown the whole season?

 

What if Diego and Evan, especially, had been in playing shape and had been able to practice with the rest of the team, instead of having to play their way back into some kind of rhythm on the basketball court at the very tail end of the season?
 

Mater Dei Catholic recruits--it's a private religious school--yet Coach Jason Bryant's (he coached Lincoln when it won the state title in 2010) Crusaders were scared stiff as the visitors showed up and began to take the game by force in the second half.

 

This wasn't the same, short-roster team that Mater Dei had faced and beaten 47-41 in the Grossmont Tournament December 12.

Baranowski had an "embarrassment of riches" with his full roster available (and no Senior Night tradition to have to start all seniors)--the aggressive Jett Wilson to alternate with senior Nick Hulquist, with Gabe Solis, who looked alert and active during his play in the first half, as well as Diego, all at guard. This was in addition to Behzad Hashemi at point guard.

One remembers Gabe in his sophomore year, then, with the bumper crop of freshmen the year before, playing in the frosh championship game at University City High. (The baby Vikes narrowly lost that one, with the ever-popular Hussain Demiral coaching.)

Then, in the front court, there was Brown along with Max Raulston. Imagine if 6'7" Nathaniel Gates had stayed with basketball. He played in that freshman title contest. Where would he be now, with two more years of basketball experience, and increased height since he was a freshman?

My animus toward the game of football, and that one night when the two brothers were injured badly, only abates when I don't replay the second and third quarters--when they were each taken on a golf cart from the field to go to the hospital--in my memory.

 

I was asking my wife this morning, surely the football injury jinx can't last past back-to-back basketball seasons, can it? A year ago, Gabe suffered from a back injury sustained in the final football playoff game that nagged him in December and into January, when, finally, it was just too late for him to regain the mojo of his sophomore basketball season (on the JV's) and the summer following that.

 

The pleasant thought is of this spring and summer, and next year, when the Vikings will be anchored by (a presumably healthy) Diego Solis, who will be a rising junior, Christian Gamboa, ditto on school year, and rising sophomore Max Raulston. That's not a bad core.