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Johnnie Bryant hit a jumper in the lane with no time left to give Bishop O’Dowd a thrilling 50-49 North Coast Section first-round playoff win over Berkeley High Tuesday night in Oakland. 

Berkeley High ended its season with a 19-8 record, while Bishop O’Dowd improved its record to 23-4 and moves on to the second round of the NCS playoffs, where they will face St. Mary’s High on Friday at 7:30 p.m. 

Twenty seconds before Bryant’s heroics, Lee Franklin had given Berkeley High the lead at 49-48 with a driving layup after he stole the ball from the Dragons’ Dave Brutocao-Kemp in the frontcourt. Bishop O’Dowd then threw the ball away on the ensuing inbounds pass. When Berkeley High inbounded the ball and O’Dowd fouled Dontae Hall with 13 seconds left, the ’Jackets seemed to have sewn up a victory. 

But Hall missed both free throws to set up the final play. 

“It’s a tough loss, but I told them what they should be focusing on now is they should be very proud of their performance and they should be proud of the character they showed tonight,” Berkeley High coach Mike Gragnani. “We kept getting down six, eight points to O’Dowd in a very hostile gym. To these kids’ credit, they kept their composure and they fought and they had a chance to win the game up to five seconds to go in the game.” 

Damien Burns was a force inside for Berkeley, despite playing with four fouls, and led a balanced scoring attack with 9 points. Three players -- Hall, Shaun Burl and Darryl Perkins -- scored 8 points each for Gragnani’s team. 

Burns made two crucial plays late in the game, hitting a turnaround jumper that gave the ’Jackets a 45-45 tie with 1:09 remaining and then passing the ball to Burl for a layup that cut the deficit to 48-47 with 37 seconds left. Burl was fouled but missed the ensuing free throw. 

Bryant led O’Dowd with 16 points, followed by Chris Domin’s 13. Bryant scored 12 of those points in the first half and was slowed somewhat in the second half by Hall’s defense. 

Gragnani was proud of his team’s effort despite the loss. 

“It’s a great season, because of the journey that we went on,” he said. “We had a relatively inexperienced team. It was a bunch of guys who were learning to know each other and learning to play together. I told the kids at the beginning of the season, “Wins, losses, they don’t matter. What will determine whether this was a successful season was whether we’re playing our best basketball at the end of the season.” We have improved tremendously. We had the chance to knock off one of the best programs around here in their gym, and I can’t tell you how gratified I feel and how proud of the team I am.”