San Ramon 72 Escazu 79

And exhale.

Michael Jackson going in for the score.

In the second game of the Clausura tournament, we went to San Ramon and snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat in the last four minutes, overcoming a ten point lead in the last four minutes. So we expected a pissed off San Ramon team coming for some revenge. In Apertura, under similar circumstances, San Ramon came to our gym and throttled us, giving them a valuable home court advantage in the playoffs.



The first quarter was even between the two teams as we had a slight lead 20-17 to end the quarter. San Ramon went with a bigger lineup as our big men got into foul trouble.  Our fast break which had been so effective in the first quarter sputtered, as we struggled with ball decisions in the open court with Daniel Simmons all over the place on the defensive end. We were stuck on 22 for the longest time as San Ramon kept grinding our defense and making buckets with Chris Giles leading the charge, stretching the lead out to twelve going into halftime.

David Carnegie getting loose for a bucket.

We picked up our defensive effort in the third quarter, generating turnovers and some easy baskets. Ike Saint Rose, David Carnegie and Michael Jackson got loose in the open floor as we surged by San Ramon, ending the quarter with a 3 point lead, 53-50.

Two minutes into the fourth quarter we had our two post players, Dave Millinier and David Carnegie, with four fouls apiece. With our big men unable to help, Isaac Conejo carved up our defense on dribble penetration and clutch three pointers, getting San Ramon back on top by seven with five minutes to go.  After a timely steal, Alonso Sanchez and Michael Jackson couldn't get a fast break alley-oop to go down: Sanchez took responsibility for the errant pass as we came to the huddle. Determined to make up for his mistake, Sanchez led the late comeback hitting a corner three and a couple nifty scoop shots, scoring nine straight points to take a stunning two point lead.

San Ramon's Chris Giles swooping in for a basket.

Coming out of a San Ramon timeout, we changed to a zone defense for the first time all half; I'm not sure how much it affected San Ramon, who looked to be setting up for a man-to-man defense, but it seemed to throw them off for a beat. A cross court pass was intercepted by Michael Jackson who took it the length of the court for an emphatic slam and a four point lead. San Ramon came back down and lost the ball on a mix-up for their last quality possession after which Ike Saint Rose hit some free throws to ice the game.

Game Notes

• David Carnegie led our scoring with 23 points, with lonso Sanchez adding 20 and Ike Saint Rose with 15. Chir Giles led San Ramon with 25 points, while Isaac Conejo scored 14, all in the fourth quarter.
• Michael Jackson led our rebounding with 11 rebounds. Mike had a weird night; besides the 11 rebounds he had 6 assists and 4 steals, but had a team high 7 turnovers and scored only nine points. Hernol Gardener had 7 rebounds for San Ramon.



Our fans were loud throughout the game, including during our timeouts.

• The win puts us atop the leaderboard and gives us a valuable tiebreaker vs San Ramon if we end up tied in the leader board.