Glendora, CA (Men’s Basketball) -- For the second time in three seasons, the Citrus College Men’s Basketball team is headed to the CCCAA State Championships. After falling by a single point to the eventual State Champion Riverside at home in the Regional Finals last season, Citrus took care of business this year with a hard fought 82-80 victory over Cuesta College.
Citrus kicked things off on the right foot scoring 10 of the first 11 points of the contest. The Fighting Owls harassed a very talented Cougar squad into missing their first seven field goal attempts of the night. Citrus would use that defensive prowess to take an early 11 point lead at the 12:29 mark after a Keith Thompson lay-up made the score 20-9 in favor of the Fighting Owls.
Cuesta would cut that lead to seven, but another push by Citrus gave them their largest lead of the night when a fast-break dunk by Thompson put a punctuation mark on a 29-16 advantage. Cuesta didn’t back down though as they survived Citrus’ surge to a 14 point lead cutting the lead back to just seven with under a minute to go, but a pair of free-throws by Cameron Nettles with 13 seconds left gave Citrus a 42-33 lead going into the break.
In the second half, the Cougars came out on fire. Cuesta scored six straight to open up the second half getting three straight lay-ups out of the break. The Fighting Owls finally broke the drought with a Donnel Phifer lay-up, but back to back turnovers by Citrus led to Cuesta taking their first lead of the night 45-44 after a Seth Koenig trey.
Over the next two minutes, the lead would change hands on eight different occasions, with Citrus finally grabbing it back thanks to a big three pointer off the hands of Jerry Santos that gave the Fighting Owls a 54-52 lead with 13:10 to go. The lead would be exchanged a few more times and the game tied up on four different occasions, with the final tie coming after Xavier Mylleville hit a jumper in the paint to knot the game up at 70 points a piece with just over three minutes to play.
Citrus would grab the lead for good when Hakeem Washington went to the charity stripe and drilled two straight free-throws, giving the Fighting Owls a two point lead. The teams would trade points over the next two minutes, with Citrus holding a mere one point lead going into the final minute of the contest. Needing a basket and with the clock winding down, Washington drove into the lane and made a spectacular jumper in the paint that went off the back board and through the hoop to push the lead back to three.
On the ensuing Cuesta possession, the Cougars turned to Koenig who drove the hoop but was blocked by Tom Granado. Keith Thompson corralled the rebound and got the ball into the hands of Jose Rivera who was immediately fouled and sent to the line for two. Rivera drilled both free-throws and gave Citrus an 80-75 advantage with 29 seconds to go.
Cuesta’s Christian Koustras then went the length of the floor and threw up a jumper in the paint and was fouled. The shot fell and so did the following free-throw, and suddenly what was a five point lead was now just down to two with 22 seconds left. Citrus got the ball in on the inbounds to Washington who was fouled and went to the charity stripe where he hit one of two free-throws to give Citrus a three point lead.
On the next Cuesta possession, WSC North Player of the Year Roger Guardia threw up a desperation three that was rebounded by Randy Hunter and given to Citrus point guard Derrick Rodgers who was sent to the free-throw line. Rodgers made one of two and pushed the lead to four points with seven seconds to go.
Out of time outs the Cougars quickly went down the floor and found Seth Koenig who hit a deep two with his foot on the 3-point line and two seconds left on the clock, that cut the Fighting Owls lead back down to two.
On the subsequent in-bound Citrus got the ball into the hands of its best free-throw shooter Jose Rivera who was fouled with nine–tenths of a second to go. Rivera actually missed both shots, but Phillip Jiminez’s prayer of a shot from the length of the floor as the buzzer sounded went wide, and Citrus was back on their way to the State Finals.
In the win, Citrus had five players finish with double-digit scoring nights including a team high 13 points and game high 13 rebounds from Tom Granado. Rivera would add 12 points and five assists, while Keith Thompson had 10 points and 7 boards. Seth Koenig from Cuesta had a career night in the loss, scoring 40 points (18 of 28 from the field) and grabbing 10 rebounds.
With the win, Citrus improves to 28-2 overall, while Cuesta’s great season ends at 26-6. The Fighting Owls will take on the #3 seed from the North which will likely be San Jose City. The game will take place on Friday evening March 12th at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, CA. Tip-off time will be announced tomorrow.
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