 "Photo: Fernando Sarabia")
The Panthers played their hearts out in a 65-66 playoff loss on Feb. 26 at Saddleback. Even though tipoff was slightly delayed by a graduation ceremony, the fans got all they came for.
The game was close throughout the first half with Chaffey guard Anthony Cammon’s nine points and center Mo Hughley’s eight points leading the early offense. Both teams matched each other’s intensity on offense and defense. Chaffey opened up a three-point lead at 13-10, which was met by a 16-6 run by Saddleback. The run was due in part to seven first half Panther turnovers.
Saddleback had a definite size advantage; with five players over 6-foot 6-inches, compared to the Panther’s smaller, quicker, guard-oriented squad. There were times when each of those attributes proved useful. The Panther guards’ quickness allowed them to beat Gaucho defenders off the dribble in route to the basket, which led to easy lay-ups. When the Saddleback inside players reacted to help out on defense, guards Cammon and Torne Jackson made crowd-pleasing assists to centers Hughley and Geoffrey Harrison.
Saddleback switched to a lot of zone defense to counteract Chaffey’s speed. The collapsing zone wreaked havoc on the speedy guards, resulting in seven points off of turnovers in the first half. In addition, the Gauchos led 6-0 on fast break points, which was a result of the Panthers’ failure to get back on defense.
With the score 26-19, the Panthers corrected their mistakes and went on a run of their own. Turning up the intensity on defense, the Panthers were able to tie the score at halftime at 35 each.
The second half began with the Panthers taking it to the Gauchos. It was Jamaal Veal’s aggressive play on offense that inspired his team, as he took his game to the rim on back-to-back driving scores. After each score he would jostle back and forth with his defender. That seemed to motivate his teammates. The Panthers led by as many as five points at 45-40.
By the 10-minute mark of the game Saddleback’s inside players began to take advantage of their height advantage. Saddleback guards pushed the ball inside where the Gaucho bigs simply dominated.
With the score close 52-49 Saddleback, Chaffey made another run with guard Matthew Wallace contributing six quick points to complement Cammon’s second scoring outburst. Chaffey’s guards were once again simply too quick. With five minutes left in the game the Panthers led 59-52. The game turned into a free throw contest in the waning moments. The crowd got a little restless with all of the whistle blowing. The refs got involved to keep the game from getting out of control. This was win or go home.
With two minutes left in the game, the Panthers were able to maneuver themselves in position to win by intentionally fouling the Saddleback players in hopes that the foul shooters would go cold. Gauchos’ free throwers fell prey to the insurmountable tension and missed one out of two foul shots five consecutive times at the line.
With the Gauchos up 65-64, and .4 seconds left on the clock, Coach Jeff Klein called time out.
On the ensuing and final play of the game, the inbound pass went to Hughley, who caught the ball with his back to the basket. He jumped and squeezed off a shot while turning in mid air, only to come up short.
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