El Capitan boys thrilled to be back on the court, pick up huge win over Atwater
El Capitan High junior William Bain was as happy as anybody to be back on the basketball court, playing a big game against Atwater on Friday night in front of a large crowd.
Bain was sidelined close to a month after testing positive for COVID just before the holidays.
Playing just his second game since being cleared, Bain scored a game-high 23 points as the Gauchos pulled away late to defeat Atwater 64-52 in an early Central California Conference showdown at the Stable Center on Friday night.
“It’s incredible to be on the court,” Bain said. “I just want to play basketball. Basketball is basketball, I just have fun playing.”
Both teams were coming off long layoffs due to COVID outbreaks on the team. Merced County Department of Health safety protocols force athletic teams who have three or more players test positive for COVID to shut down for at least 10 days.
El Capitan (11-6 overall, 2-0 CCC) was forced to pause all activity for 14 days. The Gauchos returned to action on Wednesday defeating Patterson 75-74 in overtime.
Atwater (9-5, 0-1 CCC) was playing its first game since Dec. 28 after having to shutdown due to a COVID outbreak.
“Right when you think you’re at the end of COVID it gets worse,” Hurtado said. “It’s even worse than last year. So we’re happy to just be on the court. We’re happy to have fans here. It was sweet to play a basketball game.”
Bain was one of the first players to come down with COVID on the Gauchos team. He said it was a long month being away from his teammates and basketball.
“I hated it,” Bain said. “I missed basketball. That’s my life. Basketball is something I do every single day for a couple hours. It sucked having that taken away.”
Bain picked up the pace in the second half, scoring 16 of his 23 points to help the Gauchos erase a 31-25 deficit at the half.
Bain scored six consecutive points for El Capitan early in the fourth quarter to give the Gauchos their first lead of the second half at 49-47 with 6:29 left in the game.
Junior Brody Collins also played big for the Gauchos, scoring 14 points.
“I’ve been coaching those two kids since they were in sixth grade,” Hurtado said. “We always knew this would be a special group and I’ll ride with those two kids until the wheels fall off. I think they are two of the best players in the area.”
Atwater had plenty of firepower on its side.
The Falcons are trying to win back-to-back CCC championships after claiming the title in the spring. Colton Dukes led Atwater with 15 points. Cameron Frazier and Azim Muldrow both chipped in with 10 points.
El Capitan senior Adam Barase hit the biggest shot of the game, draining a 3-pointer from the corner to give the Gauchso a 54-51 lead with 3:02 left in the game.
“Adam is one of our seniors, Hurtado said. “He had a rough patch in the beginning because we’re trying to get him to play defense. He’s starting to draw some charges. I think tonight it was the basketball gods rewarding him because he’s been playing hard.”
The Gauchos closed out the final 2:48 of the game outscoring Atwater 10-0, mostly from the free-throw line to secure the victory.
“This was huge,” Bain said. “We’ve been looking forward to this game. Brody and I know a lot of the Atwater players. We’ve played with some of them since we were younger. They beat us last year. I couldn’t let them do it again.”
