Golden Valley edges Turlock boys basketball

Keith Hunter said someone needed to make a basketball play.

Trailing by a point with under 30 seconds to play on Wednesday night, the offensive set his Golden Valley boys basketball team was attempting to run broke down. That’s when junior forward Collin Hayes took matters into his own hands.

Hayes caught the ball in the middle of the paint and immediately broke right, taking on Turlock center Travis Cook one-on-one. Hayes created just enough space to softly kiss a 5-footer off of the glass and in with 23 seconds to play. The Cougar defense did the rest, deterring Demsen McFaddin just enough on the Bulldogs’ ensuing lob play to pull out a 55-52 road victory.

The win puts GV, Merced and Turlock in a three-way tie for first place in the Central California Conference going into Friday’s rivalry games.

“The play wasn’t really designed for me, it’s just how it worked out,” said Hayes, who finished with a team-high 14 points. “I felt like I could beat him off of the dribble and I was fortunate enough to make the shot.

“I haven’t had too many of those opportunities with the game on the line, but tonight it worked out.”

It was big victory for a GV squad that felt it had let a win get away in the fourth quarter last week against Atwater.

The Cougars (10-10, 3-1 CCC) led for most of the game, but had their lead whittled down to one entering the fourth quarter. Golden Valley opened things back up with a big push to start the fourth quarter. Lee McNeill (nine points) hauled in a rebound and went the length of the court, finishing a free throw and drawing a foul to put the Cougars up 47-41 with 5:49 to play.

Turlock (10-9, 3-1 CCC) came right back behind guard Devin Bains. He scored 17 of his game-high 22 points in the second half and helped bring the Bulldogs within one again on a pullup jumper with just over 3 minutes to play.

Turlock finally completed its comeback when Habib Velasquez converted a floater in the paint to give the Bulldogs a 52-51 edge with 52 seconds left. Hayes helped make sure it would be the Bulldogs’ only lead of the fourth quarter.

“It was a heck of a game with a big play at the end,” Hunter said. “Collin is a kid that just works hard every night and made a basketball play when we needed it.

“He’d just missed that same shot on our previous possession, but he didn’t hesitate when he caught the ball. He felt he could take his guy one-on-one and made a nice shot.”

Turlock still had 23 seconds to work with, but with two fouls to give, GV quickly worked that down to about 13 seconds. With the ensuing inbounds pass on the baseline, the Bulldogs went to a lob play that GV had been burned on earlier in the game. McFaddin (11 points), got a solid look, but had his shot bounce off the back iron.

A mad scramble for the rebound ensued, with Isaac Daniel finally diving on the loose ball. He outleted to three wide open teammates and Jermaine Ewing (10 points) sealed the victory with an uncontested layup.

This story was originally published January 21, 2015 at 11:14 PM with the headline "Golden Valley edges Turlock boys basketball."