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View Winners → Minutemen Lose Championship in Final Minute, 43-41
Pasadena Independent Mar 07, 2017
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Maranatha displays their Runner Up Plaque – Courtesy photo / @WeAreMaranatha
Will host Bakersfield in state tournament Wednesday night
By Christian Romo
Considering all the close games Maranatha had to win to get to this point, it was only fitting that the Division 1AA champion was decided by the final shot. And even though junior Chris Austin’s full court heave went farther than anyone expected, Maranatha’s hope of a second CIF title fell a few feet short.
Playing the final game of the 2017 CIF Southern Section finals, the Minutemen (18-10) fell to the Rancho Verde Mustangs (26-3), 43-41, Saturday night at Azusa Pacific University. The Minutemen had a chance to win inbounding the ball with three seconds left, but with no timeouts and up against full-court press, Austin was forced to throw a 60-foot shot at the buzzer. “I never thought we were out of it,” said Maranatha coach TIm Tucker, “I knew we would be in it until the end.”
Senior Sean Espinosa stole an inbounds pass in the final minute and hit two subsequent free-throws to bring the Minutemen within four, while Austin’s three-pointer on the next possession put them within one point with three seconds to play. “In the end, they just made a few more plays than we did,” said Tucker.
The slow-paced, low-scoring affair was the type of game Maranatha has thrived on all season. The 17-14 Mustang lead at the half looked more like a football score than a matchup of the two best teams in the division, with the Minutemen slowing the pace and the Mustangs matching them with long possessions of their own. Austin broke the slog with two quick buckets to start the third quarter, finishing with a team-high 16 points on 6 of 11 shooting, but the Minutemen couldn’t find much offense from anyone else, putting up only 37 shots all game. The 43 points the defense gave up was the lowest total since giving up 31 points in a preseason game against Palisades, but their 41 point total was their second-lowest scoring effort of the season.
With two CIF championship appearances in just four seasons, Tucker, a two-time CIF champion coach at Pasadena High School, has brought the basketball program at Maranatha into the forefront of a suddenly crowded Pasadena basketball scene. Maranatha will enter the state playoffs as the 7th seed, and Tucker doesn’t plan on changing anything: “Same thing we were doing tonight, same thing we’ve been preparing for all week. We’re good to go.”
