SAN FRANCISCO — Playing their second game in less than 24 hours and third in five days, the St. Francis Lancers looked destined for a trap game before a frantic rise in the final minutes.
Trailing by nine with four minutes left and six with barely a minute to go, Vince Barringer scored a controversial and-1 with 33.7 seconds left to cut the lead to one and hit an off-balance 3-pointer at the buzzer with a defender in his face, giving the Lancers a 57-55 win over University.
“We play harder when we’re down,” Barringer said. “We know we don’t wanna lose.”
For three-and-a-half quarters, St. Francis (10-3) turned in a lackluster performance, trailing 49-40 after five straight points by Charlie Kennedy capped off an 8-1 run. In a tiny gym less than 24 hours after a league win and less than a week removed from a remarkable upset victory at Bellarmine, the Lancers were on the verge of crashing back to reality. University (11-6) outscored the visitors 16-9 in the third quarter and could have pulled away in the fourth if not for a pair of Nolan Nepomuceno threes, the latter of which cut it to 41-39.
“Nolan did a great job of providing senior leadership,” head coach Mike Motil said.
The sophomore-heavy Lancers were held in check until Barringer’s heroics, with their quartet from the class of 2022 combining for just 17 points until the final minute. Nepomuceno stepped in when needed to keep his team afloat, though the Red Devils answered with clutch plays from one of their senior captains. The 6-foot-3 Kennedy led all scorers with 24 points, including 11 in the fourth quarter as University seemed destined to beat a WCAL team for the first time since 2017. Isaiah Kerr scored with 3:51 left to make it 49-42, and the Lancers would benefit on the following possession from the first of a handful of controversial calls as Christian Heng was called for his fourth foul for pushing off on a defender. Harlan Banks then scored to cut the lead to five, and after a turnover, Heng made just enough contact on Kyle Rosecrans’ 3-point attempt to commit his fifth and final foul. Rosecrans made two free throws to get the visitors within three. Kennedy followed with another basket, and he’d make a pair of free throws with 1:56 left to give the hosts a 53-49 advantage. Following a St. Francis miss, Ren Zanze would score in traffic, and even when Rosecrans scored with a minute left, things still looked promising for the hosts.
In the final minute, though, Heng’s absence would loom large as the Lancers ratcheted up the pressure. With Raki Cabrera-Scarlata out for a third consecutive game with a broken finger, the Devils were left without a true point guard to steady the ship, and despite calling a pair of timeouts, they’d end up turning it over. Barringer would go up for a missed shot , scoring on a putback as he had leverage over Kennedy’s back, but he was given the basket plus the foul as Kennedy never had stable footing on the play. The free throw cut the lead to a single point for the first time since the early third quarter, and the Devils would turn it over again with 19 seconds left. At first, there appeared to be a loose ball foul on the play that would have sent St. Francis to the line, but the officials made the unusual ruling of calling it a player control foul even with neither team in possession of the ball. The same call came the other way after a Grant Lyon steal, leaving University to inbound the ball with 12.8 seconds left.
Lyon, who had five assists on the day in Cabrera-Scarlata’s absence, would have been a satisfactory free throw option for University, and the Devils had their preferred option go to the line with 10.1 left as Whitner Reichman was fouled. He missed the front end of the 1-and-1, the Lancers took the ball up the court, and with no better option open, Barringer shook off tight defense by Zach Beischer to take the best look he could, which rattled through the net right as the buzzer sounded to give St. Francis the win.
The mix of debatable calls and poor luck in the final minutes sent the Red Devils to their sixth straight loss against a WCAL opponent, having last won on Dec. 7, 2017 against Riordan. Tight losses have been a theme for University this year, with all six defeats coming by no more than seven points, including two in overtime and now a third at the buzzer.
“This one really takes the cake,” head coach Randy Bessolo said. “But it won’t kill us. That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and this will make us stronger in the long run. Game prep for the next one is the only thing that’ll help us forget this.”
That next one is a return to league play on Tuesday with a trip to Stuart Hall (12-4). The Devils currently hold a one-game lead over the Knights after a week of play within the BCL West. St. Francis will also be back in action Tuesday, returning to San Francisco for a visit to St. Ignatius (5-8). If results against common opponents are considered, Tuesday’s clash in the Sunset District should be a good one as the Wildcats also won a tight one against University, 65-60 in overtime on Dec. 14.
With that return to league play, memories of Barringer’s heroics may quickly vanish, but University certainly showed that the teams from the BCL West are no slouches. Those teams may be 0-4 against WCAL foes, but the widest margin of defeat in any of those games was 13 points.
“They did a great job of running their stuff and getting the shots that they wanted,” Motil said of University.
In addition to Kennedy’s 24 points, Zanze finished with 11. Rosecrans led St. Francis with 14, Barringer finished the afternoon with 10 and both Kerr and Nepomuceno each added nine. Trevor Leon scored eight as the Lancers managed a third straight win, a feat made all the more remarkable as center Ryan Daly has missed all three games with a back injury.
