Sierra Vista pulls out escape act
Bucket in closing seconds is enough to topple Clark
Sierra Vista’s boys basketball team lost on a buzzer-beater Monday in its first game ranked No. 1 in Class 4A.
On Wednesday, it was the Mountain Lions’ turn to beat the clock.
Khamari Taylor hit a driving layup with four seconds to play to give Sierra Vista a 62-60 home win over Clark.
“I was trying to get to the paint, but the paint the whole game, it was closed up,” Taylor said. “At the end of the game, my team just spread apart, five out, and I drove and the middle opened up, and it was a wide-open layup.”
The Mountain Lions (15-6, 6-1
Class 4A Desert League) trailed for most of the second half before rallying in the final two minutes. There were three lead changes and a tie in the final 1:43.
Sierra Vista took its second lead of the second half on a three-point play by EJ Dacuma with 1:01 to play that made it 60-58.
Clark (14-7, 5-2) answered on a jumper by Michael Gebremeskel with 40 seconds to go to tie the game at 60.
The Mountain Lions took a timeout with 26.9 seconds left and drew up a play for Taylor, who was able to get to the bucket for the winning shot.
“A few possessions before we kind of ran the same thing and noticed we actually got a step on the guy, so we wanted to set something similar to that up,” said Sierra Vista coach Joseph Bedowitz, whose players dumped the water cooler on him to celebrate his 100th career win.
“It didn’t go exactly the way that we drew it up, but the players ran it in order to get that step that they needed to get downhill and finish the game.”
The game featured more whistles and free throws than sustained back-and-forth action, and both teams struggled to find consistency. The teams combined to shoot 70 free throws and were whistled for 51 fouls.
“It was hard to get in a rhythm,” Bedowitz said. “It’s weird. They were calling a lot of fouls, but they weren’t calling a lot of the physical fouls. It was rough out there. But I’ll tell you one thing about this team, is they don’t ever stop. They don’t ever stop fighting.”
Clark was the more physical team through three quarters, dominating the offensive glass to take control of the game.
The Chargers held a 47-43 rebound edge in the game and took advantage of offensive rebounds to score 26 second-chance points.
Clark’s De’shaun Tolever was especially effective on the offensive glass, finishing with 25 points and 15 rebounds. Reserve forward Werrason Bakindo had a big second half with nine points, 10 rebounds and two blocked shots.
Dacuma led Sierra Vista with 17 points, and Taylor had 11 points, eight rebounds, three assists and two steals. Seven-footer Xavion Staton added 14 points, eight rebounds and six blocked shots for the Mountain Lions, who lost 83-81 to Las Vegas on Monday.
“It was really big knowing we should have won that last game,” Taylor said. “But to win this game, it feels good.”