Late Bulldog turnover converted into Oak Grove’s game-winning
basket
Morgan Hill – With 32 seconds left on the clock and up by one point over Oak Grove, the Sobrato boys basketball team needed to inbound the ball and run out the clock.
But an errant pass was intercepted and converted to an Oak Grove basket leading to a Bulldog 51-50 loss Tuesday evening.
Coach Lawrence Crawford said it wasn’t necessarily the play that ended Sobrato’s (1-4) chance at upsetting last year’s Central Coast Section runner up.
“They came out with a little more intensity at the end of the game,” Crawford said. “It never was just one play.”
Senior Marqus Crawford said in the end, the team got too anxious and tried to do too much with the ball.
“We still played with a lot of heart and intensity but we tried to force things at the end,” said Crawford, who led all shooters with 23 points.
The Bulldogs started out the fourth quarter down 36-35 before going on an 8-2 scoring run that lasted nearly three minutes.
Crawford led the charge with 12 of his points in the fourth quarter.
When the Eagles broke up the Bulldogs charge, they did it with three free throws. They didn’t sink a field goal until Kelly Kaigler hit a shot to tie the score 43-43.
Senior Robert Mercado said the game was competitive but late mistakes by Sobrato allowed Oak Grove to pull ahead.
“Both teams battled at the end, it was unfortunate that it ended the way it did,” Mercado said, who scored seven points on the night. “We just broke down mentally.”
Crawford said his boys did what he expected of them against an opponent like Oak Grove and if they had just converted a few more of their shots, the game could have swung in their favor.
“We have a concept that we call TEAM,” Crawford said referring to Sobrato’s acronym it uses in athletics. “The ‘E’ stands for execution, which we didn’t do too well. We grade ourselves based on (the letters). We got a lot of A’s but for ‘E’ I we probably dropped to a (grade of) ‘B.'”
Crawford noted that missing 11 free throws will usually hurt a team’s chances of winning the game.
He said that overall he was pleased with the team’s efforts, especially in the second half.
“I thought that they would come with much more intensity,” Crawford said. “When we hit two lay-ups, I knew we would battle the whole game.”
The game was tied 24-24 at the half and at the start of the third quarter, the Bulldogs hit the back-to-back shots leading to an 8-3 scoring run.
Oak Grove then went on the offensive to close out the quarter with a 9-3 run of its own to enter the final quarter up 36-35.
Crawford said overall he was proud with the way the team competed and said it is now up to the players to learn from the experience.
“Now they’ve been through it as players,” Crawford said. “They are going to be a very successful team.”
The Bulldogs will next play Thursday when they hit the road to Yuba City for the Mel Good Holiday Classic.
