Twice as nice: Panthers boys and girls ruled Division III
ALBANY » With just over 30 seconds left on the game clock, Jason Roche and Leo Tillson, two of a trio of seniors who led fourth-seeded St. Mary’s-berkeley to the Norcal Division III boys basketball title, walked off the floor to rousing cheers from the home crowd above their bench.
Or, more accurately, they hopped and skipped their way to the bench, bursting with enthusiasm, to go down the line of assistant coaches and embrace each one.
They could finally rest, The Panthers pulled away to beat seventh-seeded Carmel 68-53, en route to booking a trip to Golden 1 Center in Sacramento for the CIF Division III state championship game.
Unfortunately the Panthers
didn’t have a chance to play for the state crown after the state finals were canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Four times, coach Rich Buckner took teams to the Norcal stage.
Between three tries at Archbishop Riordan and his 2018 St. Mary’s squad, “I was 0 for 4 in these things,” Buckner said.
“Finally got over the hump,” he continued. “It feels damn good.”
When the postgame chaos cleared — and Buckner held a secure grip on the championship plaque — the St. Mary’s boys and girls posed for a photo at midcourt.
It’s not often a school wins multiple regional titles on the same night, let alone in the same building.
But senior point guard Hugo May wanted to gather a more intimate group for a photo with the plaque.
“Seniors!” he called out. “Where are my seniors?”
May played the role of sonar all night, finding open teammates and opportunities to draw fouls en route to a game-high eight assists with six points, all from the free-throw line.
Roche’s 23 points, including three buckets from beyond the arc, led all St. Mary’s scorers, while Tillson contributed 14.
For three quarters, St. Mary’s and Carmel traded treys, layups and leads. From the tip, they were going back and forth. No team held a double-digit lead until junior Robert Martyn connected from deep to make it 56-46 midway through the final quarter. From then, St. Mary’s wouldn’t allow the margin to slip below 10.
Senior guard Kai Rainelee sank a 3-pointer on Carmel’s second possession, then Tillson followed that with trey of his own from the foul line, erasing the last lead — 5-2 — Carmel would hold for more than a quarter. Raine-lee, again, was money from deep — this one from NBA distance — to bookend an 11-2 run that gave Carmel its largest and final lead of the game, 31-26. Those were the last points the Padres scored in the first half.
Raine-lee matched Roche’s 23 points, with three 3-pointers, as well. The Panthers expected to have trouble inside with Carmel big man J.T. Byrne, who finished with 16 points, but ultimately, Buckner thought his team was more resilient.
“There’s something to be said about wanting it more than the other team,” Buckner said.
D-III girls
ST. MARY’S 68, WOODSIDE PRIORY 59 » Coach Chris
Toler usually wins the halfcourt shot competition at the end of St. Mary’s practices. But there’s a reason why the Panthers do it.
“They don’t know why we do some of the things we do,” Toler said.
It paid off Tuesday night as the buzzer sounded to signal the end of the first quarter of the girls Norcal Division III regional championship game.
Sophomore Amela Taylor took the in-bounds pass and fired from what was really more like three-quarters of the floor from the basket. The shot arced and the Panthers’ bench looked on anxiously. Seconds later, they were on the court, on top of Taylor in a dog pile.
She sank the bucket to extend St. Mary’s lead to 15-8 at the end of one quarter. It was also the seventh point of what would be a decisive 19-0 run for secondseeded St. Mary’s in its 6859 Norcal regional title win over fifth-seeded Woodside Priory.
Taylor led all St. Mary’s scorers with 20 points while senior forward Kayla Roseman contributed a gamehigh 16 boards, along with 12 points, for a double-double.
Priory junior Aniyah Augman nearly did enough to dig her team out of 22-point hole in the third quarter. But her 20 points weren’t quite enough for the Panthers, who closed the gap to seven points with 12 seconds to go, but that was as close as they got.
St. Mary’s is the Norcal Division III champion for the first time since 2011. It made it back to the regional title game for the first time since 2017, when its seniors were freshmen.