JACK SHEEDY, ST. IGNATIUS
Prep2Prep Student Contributor

March 6, 2014

Some matchups are won and lost in unexpected moments. If your bathroom break went a little long during halftime of the CCS D-II quarterfinal game between top-seeded St. Ignatius and eighth-seeded Sobrato, you missed the deciding moment of this game.

Up just 33-27 after the first half, SI used fast break opportunities and a noticeable upgrade in defensive effort to go on a lighting-fast 16-0 run in the first 3:24 of the second half en route to a 65-47 victory.

Sharing the ball and collectively knocking down outside shots worked for the Bulldogs in the first half until they hit a roadblock when those shots stopped going down as regularly. A three-and-a-half-minute span out of halftime was all it took for the Wildcats to continue toward their goal of a NorCal playoffs appearance.

“We were playing kind of lax in the beginning, in the first couple quarters,” St. Ignatius guard Trevor Dunbar said. “Our coach just got on us, gave us a little motivation, and lit a fire under us. We came out hard, played SI basketball in the beginning of the third quarter, and ran away from there.”

Dunbar, who tied for a game-high 21 points with his fellow teammate, senior forward Julian Marcu, also racked up six rebounds and eight assists, shooting 9-for-18 from the field. His seven third quarter points were extremely important, but his teammates' abilities to get open were shown in the box score, as three different SI players scored seven in the third, many of those coming off of transition looks.

“When I get the ball on the fast break, I’m a blur,” Dunbar said. “I’m pushing it up the court, and when my guys run with me and get open, we’re really hard to stop. If they’re open, I’m going to get the ball their way.”

While Dunbar was a noticeable talent from this game, forward Julian Marcu had a supreme impact. The big man established a post presence throughout the duration of the quarterfinal game, as his balanced scoring of five first quarter points, seven in the second, and seven third-quarter points maintained a Wildcat offense that was tremendously difficult to key on.

“That’s what good scorers do; you’ve got to try to impact the game every quarter,” Sobrato coach Leland Washington said. “You can’t try to pace yourself and wait to score everything in the fourth. He’s got a high motor; we have guys that have good motors also, but he had a good day today.”

Simply put, when both your guard and forward are combining for huge games, it puts that much more pressure on a defense to exploit offensive strategy.

“If you want to focus in on me when I’m driving, then [Marcu] is going to be open and get his points,” Dunbar said. “The opposite is true also- if you focus on our big men, I’m going to attack and finish right over you.”

In the first half, SI found trouble against a balanced Sobrato attack. After two quarters, seven players had found the bucket, with four players scoring five points each. This was reminiscent of the Bulldogs’ regular season statistics, as their three leading scorers averaged 10.6, 10.6, and 11.9 points per game respectively. Sharing the ball can be effective in some cases, but Saturday afternoon, Sobrato needed one go-to scorer when shots weren’t falling. Team-leading scorer Karl Mann (10 points and eight rebounds) couldn't quite lift his team to victory.

“We just got bogged down trying to take too many quick shots,” Washington said. “You’re going turn the ball over or take bad shots when you’re not passing the ball.”

Despite the blowout victory, Dunbar knows that his St. Ignatius team needs to work on more in order to achieve a successful season. A loss to St. Francis in the first round of the WCAL playoffs knocked the Wildcats out of what seemed to be a solid CCS Open Division berth, and into the D-II playoffs. Now, they must play mistake-free basketball in order to move on past the realms of CCS.

“We’ve just got to stop taking teams for granted,” Dunbar said. “We sometimes play like we think we’re better than these teams, and don’t put in 100 percent effort where we need to. Even if we are better than a team, if we don’t come out with a hungry mentality, we can be beat.”