Both Live Oak and Gilroy had off quarters Friday night in the Bob Hagen Tournament semifinals.
Gilroy eked out a 41-38 win to advance to the championship game against Oakwood, who outlasted Aptos 59-54 in the first semifinal.
“We played really sloppy. We came out with low energy, we weren’t prepared in the beginning. That’s been a bad habit of ours in previous games,” said Gilroy coach Abrem Estorga. “At halftime we checked ourselves and they responded.”
This was Gilroy’s first win after starting the season 0-5. Live Oak, meanwhile, sees its brief winning streak come to an end, falling to 2-4 overall.
“We had a lot of momentum going there, but Gilroy still hung around,” said Live Oak coach Brett Paolucci. “We made a lot of mistakes tonight and Gilroy hung around.”
The difference between the two teams was when that lull came. While the Mustangs went through the doldrums in the third quarter, the Acorns suffered through them in the fourth.
“We started to help a lot better on the defensive side. That’s what we were lacking,” said Gilroy’s Michael Kropff of the adjustment between the third quarter and fourth quarter.. “We kept letting people into the paint and gave up a lot of points. … We made them work more offensively and forced them to miss more shots.”
It was the latter lull that turned the tide of the game.
Gilroy survived getting shutout for 6:23 of the third quarter as Live Oak went on a 6-0 run to take a 27-19 lead.
“We built up a lead. It was six or seven points. We had momentum, but we didn’t take care of the little things,” Paolucci said. “We fouled when we didn’t want to foul. We let them get offensive rebounds after we called timeout.”
The Mustangs returned the favor, holding the Acorns to a single field goal.
But Live Oak wasn’t out of it.
“Brett and his staff is always well prepared and we knew it was going to be a good match for us,” Estorga said.
The Acorns had two shots at taking the lead or tying the game in the final minute.
With just under a minute left to play, Jared Freitas pulled down an air ball and Live Oak charged up the floor.
However, the Acorns turned the ball over when Kropff came up with a steal with about 40 seconds left to play.
“We work so hard that we get some lucky bounces and we stay in some games that maybe we shouldn’t,” Estorga said. “Michael is a workhorse. He never stops. He stays on the court as long as we keep him there. We really follow his lead.”
But when Live Oak fouled Gilroy with 10 seconds left to play, Connor Doyle came through with a pair of free throws to give the Mustangs a three-point lead.
The Acorns charged up the floor and took a timeout with four seconds left to play. Paolucci drew up a play for his hot-handed Eric Togliatti who got off a great shot to send the game into overtime.
“Togliatti has been hot for us. He’s been the most consistent for us right now with the 3s,” Paolucci said.
The ball, however, came up just off the mark and bounced off the rim and despite the heads-up play by Connor Willis to grab the rebound and retreat back to the line, his shot didn’t go off in time.
It was that kind of game for the Acorns, who got off to a slow start in the first quarter, putting up seven points.
Gilroy, however, was just as slow, being held to nine for the first frame. And that nine would never have come were it not for the effort of Kropff, whose six points lifted the Mustangs in the early going.
He had 11 points in the first half and 13 for the game.
The second half, Live Oak got rolling as Willis, Symon Tan, JR Salvador and Mitch Conforti came through with points to give Live Oak a 21-19 halftime lead.
In the third quarter, Michael Togliatti set the tone with seven points in Live Oak’s run.
Gilroy was nearly shutout until Kevin Azucueta broke up the run with a 3-pointer. Doyle made sure the Mustangs had a shot in the fourth quarter when he drained a 3 in the final minute for a six-point deficit going into the final frame.
Doyle finished with a game-high 15 points. Kropff finished with a double-double, also pulling down 10 rebounds.
For Live Oak, Michael Togliatti led with 11 points, followed by Justin Baker with nine points and 10 boards.
The Acorns will next face Aptos in the third-place game of the Hagen Tournament, scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.
Meanwhile, Gilroy tips against Oakwood at 7:30 p.m.
Estorga said Gilroy and Oakwood already faced off in a scrimmage and the Mustangs held their own that day. He is optimistic about his team’s chances heading into the title game.
“Our style, we’re really blue collar workers,” Estorga said. “It’s not going to look too pretty for us, but we’ll get the job done.”
