Vintage rallies in final three minutes of game to edge Kimball, claim consolation title at Denny Lewis Invitational
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com)
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When games are close down the stretch, it comes down to simply who executes best and remains calm.
In the consolation championship of the 48th annual Denny Lewis Invitational on Saturday afternoon, this is what the Vintage boys basketball team was able to do as they came away with a narrow 57-51 victory over Kimball-Tracy.
The Crushers (3-2) were able to come away with the victory thanks to outsourcing Kimball 10-4 in the final three minutes of the contest in a gritty showing in that time frame.
Vintage also got the victory as things got a little chippy down the stretch. However, the Crushers were the ones who maintained their composure.
“We could have easily lost our composure and gone south, and we totally rallied,” Vintage head coach Ben Gongora explained. “We totally rallied and came through it. We executed phenomenally on offense, on defense, we clamped down.”
Once again the key to winning was defense, where they pulled out all the stops. The half-court trap was especially effective as the Jaguars (3-2) had a hard time figuring this out in the game, especially in the first half.
“I think the other team helped us a lot because it got chippy,” Gongora pointed out. “The mouths are starting to run a little and everybody knows I have a rule. If my player gets a technical for running their mouth, they’re done for the game. We’re at the Denny Lewis Invitational and that’s a rule that I played with when I played for him. Unfortunately, I had a player fall victim to that today and he sat for the rest of the game. But we were able to keep our mouths shut and let our play speak for itself.”
Before this, Vintage took its biggest lead of the game in the second quarter when they went on a 10-0 run until there were just 2 minutes left in the first half. That burst gave the Crushers a 28-20 lead after trailing by two points.
One of the main reasons the Crushers were able to come away with a victory was the play of senior Miles MacPherson. He finished with a team-high of 22 points and 3 rebounds. He did most of his scoring in the first half where he scored 17 of those points. He also went 5 of 6 at the free-throw line as well.
Aiding the cause for the Crushers were Jace Lopez and Brady Hearn who each added 10 points in the game as well. Each of them scored 5 points in each half. Lopez finished with 3 rebounds and Hearn had 2.
Rounding out the scoring for Vintage were Connor Gongora (7 points, 2 rebounds), Nate Marroquin (4 points, 3 rebounds), and Luke Haeuser (4 points, blocked shot).
With the Saturday win, Vintage finished the tournament with a 2-1 mark. Their only loss came to second-place finisher Whitney-Rocklin. Winning close games is also something that bodes well for league play after the New Year as well. After all, most league games are tight.
“Anytime you can go 2-1 in a tournament, it’s a successful tournament,” Gongora said of the tournament. “We’ll take it any day.”
To finish with this mark, they had to battle through injuries and no big man down low.
“We have 4 or 5 players out with injuries right now,” Gongora explained. “And it was next man up. We rallied and we’re small in numbers and we’re small in stature.”
Vintage will be back in action on Tuesday night at 7 pm when they visit Santa Rosa who beat Napa 70-60 to claim third in the tournament.
