Mariposa basketball falls short in NorCal loss

The tears and hugs came in equal measure and abundance at Don Reid Court on Saturday night.

The emotions displayed by the Mariposa boys basketball team and their faithful came not from the 70-65 loss to Stuart Hall of San Francisco in the quarterfinals of the NorCal Division V Tournament – which was a back-and-forth contest that could have gone either way into the final 30 seconds – but because the wild ride was over.

A senior class, the likes of which may not be seen again on the Mariposa campus, had their high school careers draw to a close and the players and fans alike both celebrated and mourned the moment.

“Coach told us we have nothing to hang our heads about,” point guard Bradley Chambers said. “And our heads aren’t hanging because we lost, but because it’s over.

“The last couple weeks have been incredible with winning a blue banner and earning a first-round bye in the state tournament. Having the community get behind us the way it did. We just wanted it to last a little longer.”

Stuart Hall’s inside-outside duo of Zeke Crawford (team-high 23 points, 13 rebounds) and Axavier Byrd (21 points) are the main reason the journey so abruptly drew to a close.

Crawford’s long 6-foot-5 frame short-range jump shot gave Mariposa fits in the opening half as the Knights (21-11) took a 37-33 lead into the break.

The Grizzlies (24-5) switched to a 2-3 zone after the break in an effort to make the entry pass to Crawford more difficult, but that opened up space for Byrd and company on the perimeter.

While Mariposa struggled to put together defensive stops, the Grizzly offense was out of rhythm as well. Stuart Hall used its excellent quickness to put heavy pressure on the inbounds pass and Mariposa coughed the ball up 12 times in the opening half.

“I don’t think it’s because their guards were that much better athletes than us, but we definitely didn’t handle that pressure well,” Mariposa coach Bob Jaekle said. “Our guards made some uncharacteristic mistakes.

“Once we figured it out, we handled it really well, and that’s when we kind of went on a run.”

Mariposa led only briefly in the game’s first 22 minutes on a Noah Nunes 3-pointer with 2:26 to play in the opening quarter. That changed with a surge to close the third quarter as the Grizzlies went on an 8-1 run. A Chambers layup put Mariposa in front with 1:45 left in the third quarter and Jacob Baca sent the near-capacity crowd into a frenzy with a layup over Crawford that gave the Grizzlies a 52-49 lead at the end of three.

Jaekle’s squad went up by five to open the fourth quarter, but the Knights came storming back. Byrd and Darna Stewart combined for four fourth-quarter 3s as Stuart Hall went up by as much as six.

“It felt like the game was ours to win to start the fourth quarter,” said Baca, who finished with 18 points. “The crowd was into it, but we didn’t hold onto that momentum.

“We just turned it over or didn’t rebound and it cost us.”

Mariposa didn’t go quietly, however. The Grizzlies kept themselves in striking distance the rest of the way. Dalton Rockwood (game-high 24 points) used the final bucket of his career to trim SH’s lead to 68-65 with 1:27 left.

Jaekle opted to play defense instead of fouling to string out the game, and the Knights obliged by running the shot clock down. Byrd put up an awkward 3 right as the shot clock expired, but Crawford ran down the rebound.

Stuart Hall worked more clock before calling a timeout with 24 seconds to play and 10 seconds on the shot clock. Byrd left no doubt this time, beating his man off of the dribble in laying in the dagger with 17 seconds to play.

“I felt like if we got a stop something good was going to happen,” Jaekle said. “They played right into our hands, hoping we would foul instead of running their offense. We forced the bad shot we wanted and then just didn’t get the rebound.

“Defensive rebounding has been our struggle all season and this time it ended our season.”

This story was originally published March 12, 2016 at 9:58 PM with the headline "Mariposa basketball falls short in NorCal loss."