SACRAMENTO — In the blink of an eye, Sylmar High’s historic run of seeking its first state boys’ basketball championship vanished amid a flurry of layups by San Marin on Friday afternoon at Golden 1 Center in the Division V championship game.
The Spartans went from up five to down 21 points during a second-half San Marin surge. San Marin made 23 of 35 shots in the final 16 minutes for an 89-64 win. Sixty-eight of San Marin’s points came in the paint.
“We live with it, but how many shots did we miss?” Sylmar coach Bort Escoto said. The Spartans were 25-for-64 shooting.
Sylmar (24-13) trailed 31-17 after one quarter, then scored the first 14 points of the second quarter to tie the score 31-31 before trailing 39-37 at halftime.
The Spartans took a 48-43 lead midway through the third quarter on a three by Payton Perez. Then came the Spartans’ defensive problems. Hurt by turnovers, an ineffective full-court press and a failure to hustle back, Sylmar gave up 14 consecutive baskets on layups and found itself trailing 77-56 early in the fourth quarter.
“The difference was we didn’t score,” Escoto said.
“This tends to happen to us a lot,” said Rob Winn, who scored 27 points. “The score goes up and down and we usually go on a run. It didn’t happen today.”
San Marin (22-13) received 25 points from Miller Morgan, 16 from Kellen Dunning and 15 from Jackson Young. Aiden Garcia had 14 points for Sylmar.
It was a disappointing ending to a season that turned around for Sylmar in January after an 82-49 loss to Venice when Escoto switched to a run-and-gun offense and pressing attack once used by Paul Westhead at Loyola Marymount. It was risky but paid big dividends. The Spartans went from 6-11 to winning 18 of their next 20 games and scored 100 or more points five times.
“When we changed it, we weren’t going anywhere and it wasn’t fun,” Escoto said.
It was fun for coaches and players — except for Friday.
The Spartans won the City Section Division III championship.
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