CONCORD — Three of the four games at the quarterfinals of the 31st Chris Vontoure Spartan Classic went down to the wire, but none were more exciting than the finale, where Serra pulled out a season-opening 58-57 overtime win against Regis Jesuit of Colorado.
Cooper Fitz’s 3-pointer just inside the final minute of OT gave the Padres the lead for good as role players lifted Serra (1-0) to victory after 6-foot-7 senior Cade Rees was fouled out on a wrong call with 2:48 remaining.
It was actually Fitz who should have been called for a moving screen to give the ball back to the Raiders, who had erased a 10-point deficit and taken a 46-45 lead, but Rees was charged with his fifth foul.
Fitz got some redemption with the go-ahead three in overtime, but he wasn’t the only one to make up for earlier mistakes for Serra. Patrick Simon had airballed a pair of shots earlier in the game, but his 3-pointer with under a minute left in regulation tied the game at 48 and sent the game to an additional period.
In overtime, junior guard Antonio Abeyta scored five of his nine points, putting the Padres in front with a layup plus a free throw and scoring again off a Regis Jesuit (1-2) turnover.
Trailing 53-49, the Raiders wouldn’t go quietly. Just as they had come back in regulation, they did so again in overtime behind the brilliance of 6-9 Daniel Carr, whose third and final 3-pointer of the night gave the team from Aurora, Colorado a one-point lead after two Jamil Safieddine free throws.
For most of the second half, Regis had been fighting an uphill battle thanks to Rees, who scored a team-high 21 points, and Parker McDonald, who finished with 12. Rees hit a three in the final minute of the second quarter and then fed Julius Alcantara to send the Padres into the locker room with a 31-22 advantage on the heels of a 9-1 run.
Carr opened the second half with two of his 28 points and the Raiders closed the gap to five on a short jumper by Payton Egloff, but Rees’ third 3-pointer and a McDonald lay-in stretched the lead to 36-26. That seemed to set something off for Regis, sparking a 9-2 run to close the quarter, finished with a Carr three.
The Raiders would draw even with a Carr putback and free throw with 6:14 left in the fourth, and though McDonald would hit a three on the next possession, a Carr basket with three minutes left would give Regis the lead for the first time since the opening two minutes. The blown call on the following possession looked like it would cost Serra the game, but key plays by Abeyta, Fitz and Simon helped the Padres come out on top.
After the go-ahead three from Fitz, Serra’s defense got a stop, and the Padres ran down the shot clock before McDonald found Alcantara for a game-sealing layup. Safieddine would hit a three with 1.8 seconds left to finish off his 17-point night, but the Padres ensured Regis would have no shot off a missed Fitz free throw as the buzzer sounded.
Carr had 13 rebounds to go with his 28 points. Fitz’s missed free throw with 1.2 seconds left in overtime would be the only time the Padres missed from the line all night. Rees made all eight of his as the team shot 10-for-11. Regis, on the other hand, made just 11 of 21.
Las Lomas 63, Fairfield 60
The first game of the day at De La Salle’s annual tournament set the tone for a full afternoon of exciting basketball, with the Knights escaping after Fairfield came back from down 15 late in the third quarter.
Issah Henderson made one of two free throws with 1:22 left for Las Lomas (2-0) to retake the lead, and point guard J.T. Estes made all four of his attempts from the line in the final 30 seconds to seal the game despite a phenomenal afternoon from Shakir Howard, who scored a game-high 26 behind six 3-pointers. His final points of the day tied the game at 57 with 1:44 remaining.
“That’s just Shakir doing Shakir things,” said head coach Nelson Beard. “Obviously, we were struggling to look for somebody to consistently put the ball in the basket, and he was able to do that for us.”
Early on, it looked like a shooting contest between Howard and Gordy Lindsay, who led the Knights with 22, including four 3-pointers in the second quarter alone to give Las Lomas a 36-26 halftime lead. He singlehandedly outscored Fairfield (1-5) 11-4 over a two-minute stretch in the second as Las Lomas opened up a 12-point advantage with a young and inexperienced team looking awfully similar to last year’s Northern California Division I champs.
“We’re not trying to play like last year’s team, actually,” said first-year head coach Jason Rockwell. “We’re just trying to figure out who we are.”
An and-1 from Blake Thorpe, who had been playing football until Friday, stretched the lead to 15 in the third, and two Casey Cappo free throws made it 50-35 with 1:42 left in the period before Howard and Wesley Darnes led an impressive comeback. Howard scored the final five points of the third quarter, and Darnes scored 10 of his 19 in the final period to give the Falcons life.
His 3-pointer with 15 seconds to go cut the lead to one before two last free throws by Estes, who went 6-of-8 from the line and finished with 14 points. Conversely, Fairfield shot an abysmal 3-for-11 from the charity stripe.
Crespi 56, St. Mary’s-Albany 52
An inspired effort from Rich Buckner’s Panthers nearly took down the Celts, who were a Southern California Open Division team nine months ago, but Crespi’s perfect free throw shooting made the difference. 6-foot-7 guard Kyle Owens, committed to Montana, scored eight of his 17 points on fourth-quarter free throws to send Crespi (8-2) through to the semifinals.
St. Mary’s (4-2) trailed 27-20 at halftime but tied the game with a 9-2 run to open the third quarter, evening the score at 29 on Jason Roche’s three-point play. Robert Power’s third 3-pointer gave the Celts a five-point advantage, but the Panthers would go in front for the first time all day with a 7-0 run, tying the game on Josiah Robinson’s steal and layup before taking the lead on two free throws by Hugo May. Owens would put Crespi ahead with two seconds left in the third quarter with a three-point play of his own, and thanks to their 11-for-11 performance at the line, the Celts would never let St. Mary’s hold the ball with a chance to do more than tie inside the final seven minutes.
Ellis Kahn scored a game-high 19 for Crespi, while St. Mary’s got 17 apiece from Robinson and Roche. Damiri Lindo scored nine, all in the first quarter.
De La Salle 65, Marin Catholic 32
The tournament hosts used a 20-4 second quarter to pull away from the undermanned Wildcats. De La Salle point guard Thomas Gregorios scored nine of his game-high 14 in that quarter, and a three by freshman Jeremiah Dargan (13 points) opened up a double-digit lead with 3:45 left in the first half. From there, Marin Catholic (2-1), playing without point guard Sean McDevitt (thumb and foot injuries) plus four football players, would never have a chance.
The lead grew to 17 by halftime and reached 28 in the third as De La Salle (3-0) got points from ten different players, including eight off the bench from freshman Chris Bunch. Tim Kostolansky scored just six, but his baseline dunk in the third quarter was arguably one of the best plays in any of the four games on the day.
The Wildcats got eight points from Eamon Davidson and six from Dylan Joyce.
Friday schedule
Consolation bracket
3:30: Regis Jesuit (1-2) vs. St. Mary’s-Albany (4-2)
5:00: Fairfield (1-5) vs. Marin Catholic (2-1)
Semifinals
6:30: Las Lomas (2-0) @ De La Salle (3-0)
8:00: Serra (1-0) vs. Crespi (8-2)
