Eagles win down-to-the-wire thriller vs. Spartans
EL CENTRO — ¡Qué controversia! A typically thrilling Imperial Valley League contest between the Southwest Eagles and the Central Union Spartans was decided in the former’s favor on Tuesday evening after Southwest senior Alberto Zavala flipped in a heavily contested midrange prayer to beat the final buzzer and put his team up 53-51.
So heavily contested was Zavala’s shot that the referees on duty whistled the Spartans for a foul on the play. They did not, however, whistle Zavala for a double-dribble, despite vehement protests by the Central bench that they ought to.
Whether Zavala did get the benefit of an extra bounce is a matter of conjecture at this point, but there’s no doubt that the whole sequence of events was a tonally appropriate capper to a truly madcap night of basketball.
A raucous Spartan Arena played host not just to two basketball blood rivals, but two cheerleading squads, two loudas-heck fan bases and one booming CUHS drumline to boot.
Everybody came ready to party, and party they did.
The Eagles came out gunning, with a nice, dribble-kickout game leading to open threes by Isaac Vargas and Daryn Aguilar, which, coupled with a nice put-back by Andres Tabarez, gave Southwest an early 8-0 lead.
Their full head of steam, set against all of the ugly mid-rangers the Spartans were coughing up gave the game the feeling of an incipient rout in the opening minutes, but obviously that wasn’t to be.
Jordan Reed finally got one of those tough, contested looks to go down, introducing the Spartans to the scoreboard and seeming to bring the game back to equilibrium.
Senior guard Khalil Wyatt did most of Central’s heavy lifting from there, barreling his way into the paint for a steady diet of shots at the rim and free throws en route to a game-high 25 points. It was a pair of Wyatt free throws that tied the game up at 10-10 heading into the second-quarter.
During that second quarter the
Spartans’ seemed to take control of the game with their size. They were beasting on the offensive glass (overheard as Southwest was heading towards the visitor’s locker room at halftime: “I’m boxing out. How about you guys?”), and their length was making it impossible for the Eagles to get any good looks on the interior.
Still, despite all of their incumbent advantages, the Spartans couldn’t do better than a 25-20 lead at the break, and when the
Eagles opened up the third quarter with another three from Aguilar, it was clear that this one was probably going to go the distance.
It was Zavala — who led the Eagles with 17 points — who put Southwest up for the first time in the second half at 2927, and the purple- andgold managed to hang on for dear life from then on. Central took the lead ever-so-briefly at 36-35 on a Wyatt hesitation pullup early in the fourth quarter, but an Adam Rubio corner three nixed that.
From there Central tied at 38- 38, 49- 49 and 5151, but they could never get the lead again despite maintaining slight rebounding and fouling advantages. The Eagles pint- sized floor- general
Leo Castillo was big down the stretch, keeping the ball away from the Spartan defense and hitting an impossible shake-and-bake layup from to make it 51- 49 with just under a minute left before two more Central free throws set the stage for Zavala’s game-winner.
Now 3-2 in the Imperial Valley League, the 11-
15 Eagles have, against all odds, put themselves in a position to grab a share of their second straight league title.
If they beat Calexico ( 22- 3, 4- 1) tonight at home, it’s theirs.
Central ( 13- 14, 1- 4) winds up its regular season at home vs. Brawley in the Golden Ball Game.