Young catches fire as Manteca pulls away from El Capitan

Chris Tufts had to gamble.

The El Capitan High boys basketball coach knew his team couldn’t protect the inside against Manteca’s big men and take away the Buffaloes’ outside shooters.

“I tried to take the lesser of two evils,” Tufts said. “That was my bet. We focused on trying to guard their bigs and hope (Dwight Young) didn’t get hot.”

Young did.

The Manteca point guard caught fire in the third quarter, knocking down four three-pointers to help the third-seeded Buffaloes pull away for a 70-53 win over the 14th-seeded Gauchos (21-7) in the first round of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III playoffs on Wednesday night.

Young hit six shots from beyond the arc and scored a game-high 23 points as Manteca will advance to the quarterfinals on Friday against No. 6 Lincoln, which defeated No. 11 Christian Brothers 65-41 on Wednesday.

“He can shoot it if you leave him open,” said Manteca coach Brett Lewis, whose team improved to 23-5. “We needed it. Our guys did a good job of finding him. (El Capitan) had a lot of guys on one side of the floor and we did a good job with the skip pass to the other side.”

El Capitan came out ready to play physical with Manteca’s big trio of Kenny Wooten (6-foot-9), Anand Hundal (6-9) and Tydus Verhoeven (6-8).

The Gauchos outworked the Buffaloes in the first half and controlled the boards, but still trailed 32-27 because they couldn’t knock down their open shots. El Capitan made just 12 of 31 shots from the floor in the first half.

“I told our guys, 14 seeds upset the three seed all the time,” Lewis said. “(El Capitan) wanted it more than us in the first half. They outrebounded us. They played with more effort. We didn’t want it as much. That changed in the second half.”

The Buffaloes came out in the second half and immediately scored on offensive rebounds on their first two possessions. Verhoeven (14 points) scored on an offensive rebound and the Nevada-bound Wooten (10 points) was fouled on a putback attempt and hit one-of-two free throws to extend the Manteca lead to 35-27.

El Capitan point guard Isaiah Knott pulled the Gauchos back closer with six quick points to cut the deficit to 37-33 with 5:04 left in the third quarter.

Then Young took over.

The 5-11 junior drained three treys in less than two minutes to push the lead to 49-35 with 2:03 left in the third quarter. He later added a fourth three-pointer that helped the Buffaloes take a 56-40 lead into the fourth quarter.

“He shoots about 30 percent from three on the season, so we knew he was their shooter,” Tufts said. “We were jumping out at him with a hand in the air and he was still knocking them down.”

Knott led the Gauchos with 18 points. James Sellers added eight points, but was never able to get going from beyond the arc. Joshua Stewart added eight points off the bench.

The Gauchos made just 3 of 18 shots from beyond the arc.

“(Manteca) did a good job of coming out on James,” Tufts said. “They put a little pressure on Isaiah, but he was able to get free. Mark (Sellers) wasn’t ready to shoot a couple times. Because of their size and because they like to block shots, our game plan was to pump fake and go at them. We knew we couldn’t just stand out there and rely on the threes in a playoff game.”

Despite the loss, it was a rewarding season for El Capitan, which won a Western Athletic Conference championship in just its second varsity season.

After the game, there were no sad faces as the players posed for pictures.

“I’m more than proud of what we did this year as a new school,” Knott said. “I can’t put into words how proud I am. We made history. It’s been a great season.”

This story was originally published February 24, 2016 at 10:49 PM with the headline "Young catches fire as Manteca pulls away from El Capitan."