SACRAMENTO — In the blink of an eye, Sylmar High’s historic run of seeking its first state boys’ basketball championship vanished amid a flurry of layups by San Marin on Friday afternoon at Golden 1 Center in the Division V championship game.
The Spartans went from up five to down 21 points during a second-half San Marin surge. San Marin made 23 of 35 shots in the final 16 minutes for an 89-64 win. Sixty-eight of San Marin’s points came in the paint.
“We live with it, but how many shots did we miss?” Sylmar coach Bort Escoto said. The Spartans were 25-for-64 shooting.
Sylmar (24-13) trailed 31-17 after one quarter, then scored the first 14 points of the second quarter to tie the score 31-31 before trailing 39-37 at halftime.
The Spartans took a 48-43 lead midway through the third quarter on a three by Payton Perez. Then came the Spartans’ defensive problems. Hurt by turnovers, an ineffective full-court press and a failure to hustle back, Sylmar gave up 14 consecutive baskets on layups and found itself trailing 77-56 early in the fourth quarter.
“The difference was we didn’t score,” Escoto said.
“This tends to happen to us a lot,” said Rob Winn, who scored 27 points. “The score goes up and down and we usually go on a run. It didn’t happen today.”
San Marin (22-13) received 25 points from Miller Morgan, 16 from Kellen Dunning and 15 from Jackson Young. Aiden Garcia had 14 points for Sylmar.
It was a disappointing ending to a season that turned around for Sylmar in January after an 82-49 loss to Venice when Escoto switched to a run-and-gun offense and pressing attack once used by Paul Westhead at Loyola Marymount. It was risky but paid big dividends. The Spartans went from 6-11 to winning 18 of their next 20 games and scored 100 or more points five times.
Sylmar players look on from the bench at Golden 1 Center on Friday during the CIF Division V championship game.
(Greg Stein)
“When we changed it, we weren’t going anywhere and it wasn’t fun,” Escoto said.
It was fun for coaches and players — except for Friday.
The Spartans won the City Section Division III championship.
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