By Ed Piper
La Jolla's rejuvenated basketball team, again playing the 7:30 evening game in the Grossmont Invitational on its own court as an alternate tournament site, went to battle against Coronado with everything the Vikings had.
They fought tooth-and-nail, scrapped and clawed. Their foe: the Islander dragon, one man, Wayne McKinney III, who apparently puts his uniform pants on one leg at a time--though you could hardly tell it by the heroic effort he put out against the entire La Jolla team Fri., Dec. 20.
In opposition to the 6-foot guard's 39 big points, made almost exclusively on drives from beyond the left and right elbows of the paint against multiple defenders, shots thrown up even left-handed by the natural righty--the Vikings did all they could to slow The Third down.
After smaller defender Diego Solis got shoved out of the way, yet called for a foul (one of his five before being disqualified with four seconds left), the referees responded to Coach Paul Baranowski's requests to watch McKinney more closely and whistled him with 1:20 left.
At the time, La Jolla trailed, 52-49, with Wayne having just made one of two free throws for that lead. It wasn't clear if the adept driver had been fouled, or if he had just fallen to the floor in cavorting his body on yet another contested attempt to the basket.
Christian Gamboa, the Vikings' own off-the-dribble maestro, drew a foul on a drive with 55 seconds left. His two free throws brought La Jolla to within 52-51.
After Baranowski called a full timeout, in the ensuing rough-and-tumble play it wasn't clear if anyone had possession, as the ball caromed and was struggled for on the floor by players from both teams.
Yet the lead referee, a respected veteran official, somehow determined that 11-year Coronado coach J.D. Laaperi's request for a timeout from the bench at the other end of the floor was merit-worthy.
On the following possession, everyone knowing who would take the ball for the Islanders, McKinney couldn't finish on a layup. Then Solis failed on his own attempt. With 23 seconds left, the ball to La Jolla, Laaperi called a timeout.
With five seconds remaining, McKinney interrupted La Jolla's possession, leaping in the air near midcourt as the ball headed out of bounds to spot an open teammate and get it to him. Diego committed his fifth foul, and Islander freshman Nolan Reuter was awarded two free throws with four seconds left.
He missed both ends, but La Jolla couldn't get the ball up court in time for a viable shot, and time ran out, the one-point Coronado lead remaining intact for the 52-51 win.
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