Gauchos stunned at the buzzer

Nick Burt didn’t have to time to think. He could only react.

The Ceres High School senior received a pass from Puneet Sahi with about one second left and quickly went up for a layup to score just before the buzzer sounded to lift the Bulldogs to a 52-51 boys basketball win over host El Capitan on Wednesday night.

“When (Sahi) drove, I thought he was going to shoot it,” said Burt, who scored 13 of his 17 points in the second half. “I was surprised he passed it to me. I had to shoot it fast because I knew the buzzer was going to go off.”

As the ball fell through the net and the buzzer sounded, many El Capitan players fell to the court in disappointment as their late comeback fell short.

Just 25 seconds earlier, Jarod Latona had scored on a drive to give the Gauchos a one-point lead. El Capitan fought back from a 10-point deficit entering the fourth quarter.

“The toughest part was suffering through that second and third quarters,” Gauchos coach Chris Tufts said. “After we took a 12-3 lead three minutes into the game we only scored 18 points the next 19 minutes.”

The Gauchos were plagued with long offensive droughts. After jumping out to a 12-3 lead, El Capitan missed 12 consecutive shots until James Sellers connected on one of his four first-half three-pointers with 5:24 left in the second quarter that gave El Capitan a 15-12 lead.

“We can’t use the excuse that we’re young,” Tufts said. “We have to fight through those challenges of missing a few shots or making a couple turnovers.”

The Gauchos (7-7, 0-2 Western Athletic Conference) still managed to take a 23-20 lead at the half, but the Bulldogs (7-7, 1-1) stormed out of the locker room in the third quarter with an 18-4 run to open a 38-27 lead. Sahi led the way with eight of his 17 points in the third quarter.

The Gauchos flipped the switch in the fourth quarter. Adam Her drained a three-pointer from the corner to cut Ceres’ lead to 40-33. A three-point play from Joshua Stewart and two free throws from Isaiah Knott helped pull the Gauchos within 40-38 with 6:27 to play.

“That proves to us what we’re capable of doing,” Tufts said. “We have confidence we can do that for 32 minutes instead of just a minute and 30 seconds.”

Ceres stretched the lead to five late, but Knott answered with a three-point play and Marcos Dinkins hit another three-pointer to give the Gauchos a 49-48 lead with 1:40 left.

Ceres then beat the El Capitan press with a Burt layup 12 seconds later. Latona looked as if he was going to be the hero for the Gauchos until Burt’s last-second layup.

This story was originally published January 7, 2015 at 10:48 PM with the headline "Gauchos stunned at the buzzer."