Hillcrest holds on to beat Grand Terrace in opener

Two weeks ago, the Hillcrest boys basketball team played Grand Terrace during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day showcase event at Riverside City College and won by 18 points.

On Wednesday night, the teams found each other in a battle that wasn’t decided until the game’s final seconds with a second-round spot in the CIF Southern Section Division 3AA playoffs at stake.

Grand Terrace rallied multiple times from double-digit deficits to close the margin to one possession, but Hillcrest withstood each challenge and held on to win 77-70.

Hillcrest, the River Valley League runner-up after seeing its league championship streak snapped at six years by Arlington, won a playoff opener for the eighth consecutive year. The Trojans (22-7) will travel to No. 4-seeded Hesperia (21-8) for a second-round game tonight.

“Defense was a struggle for us tonight and we knew Grand Terrace was a better team than they showed when we played that first time,” Trojans coach Jackson Wood said, “but we found a way to get it done.

“I never take postseason wins for granted because my first few years here we were one-and-done. But the guys know they’re in for a battle against a Hesperia side that I’ve been voting highly in polls all year.”

Hillcrest opened the game on a 6-0 run and found itself with a 15-8 lead after a quarter.

The Trojans took their largest lead at 24-11 after a 3-pointer by Mckel Shedrick with 6 1/2 minutes left in the half. Grand Terrace (16-14) responded with a 10-3 run over the final 2 1/2 minutes to cut the deficit to 36-32. Punctuating the run was a half-court, banked-in 3-pointer from the Titans’ Jerrod Blair.

Hillcrest got a couple of breaks in the third quarter, as a 3-pointer by Shedrick caught the back of the rim and toppled in, and Bryce Bynum’s midrange jumper at the buzzer also caught the heel of the rim and went in to give the Trojans a 55-47 lead.

“It was really disappointing to lose that River Valley League championship streak, but we had to set that aside and prepare for tonight,” said Shedrick, who led all players with 27 points. “Grand Terrace really pushed us, and we needed that challenge going into Friday.”

Kyle Lowery made a pair of shots from beyond the arc as Grand Terrace cut the Hillcrest lead to 67-64 with 2:30 remaining in the game. Deisyn Payne’s layup with heavy contact that went without a foul call cut the deficit to 71-70 with one minute left.

Down the stretch, the Titans had several shots to take the lead that didn’t fall, and Grand Terrace was forced to foul. But the strategy didn’t pay off as Hillcrest’s Nate Bowden made 6 of 6 free throws to secure the win.

Alex Bello scored 17 points for Hillcrest, and Bowden added 16 more. Payne led Grand Terrace with 21 points, while Lowery and Reginald Caldwell added 19 and 16 points, respectively.