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Sharper scores 34, but St. Mary’s falls back in second half 

Despite a huge game from John Sharper, the St. Mary’s Panthers couldn’t hold onto a halftime lead, faltering down the stretch in a 76-70 loss to De La Salle in the North Coast Section Division I championship game at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley. 

Sharper, a senior, scored 22 of his game-high 34 points in the first half, hitting his first five 3-pointers to stake the Panthers to a 38-36 lead after one half. But the Spartans, who won their fourth straight NCS title, came out with a seven-point run to start the second half and never trailed again. 

De La Salle center Rekalin Sims had his way down low, leading the Spartans with 22 points and 12 rebounds. The top-ranked Spartans also got some clutch long-range shooting from Taylor Pena and Matt Schroeder, who scored 15 and 12 points, respectively. 

The Panthers usually cause turnovers in bunches with their pressure defense, but De La Salle calmly advanced the ball through the press all night, committing just eight turnovers in the game. The Spartans used a height advantage to go over the Panthers and got plenty of easy baskets on the break. 

St. Mary’s head coach Jose Caraballo blamed himself for the loss, feeling he hadn’t made the proper adjustments during halftime. 

“(De La Salle head coach Frank) Allocco outcoached me in the second half,” Caraballo said. “He kicked my butt, and I lost this game for us.” 

Allocco’s most important strategy was to limit Sharper after the break, breaking out of his usual all-zone defense. At least one Spartan defender was assigned to Sharper at all times in the second half, holding him to 12 points, six of which came in the game’s final seconds. 

“We tried to make adjustments,” De La Salle coach Frank Allocco said. “(Sharper) was getting a lot of looks and we trying to keep him from getting so many open shots.” 

With Sharper comparatively bottled up, the Panthers couldn’t get things going. Point guard DaShawn Freeman scored 8 of his 12 points in the second half, but big men Chase Moore and Simon Knight combined to score just 13 points in the game after pouring in 34 against Bishop O’Dowd on Friday. 

The loss broke a 21-game winning streak for the Panthers, as well as a 12-game postseason run that included last season’s Division IV state championship. But the narrow loss also proved that Caraballo was correct in moving the team up to Division I this season, as they stood up to one of the state’s top teams and came up just short. 

“This was an important game for us,” Sharper said. “We know now we can play at this level. We got this far, and we can go farther if we play better. We can get these guys next time.” 

The Panthers will get another shot at top competition in the Northern California Regional playoffs. They got the fifth seed as an at-large team and will head to No. 4 Oak Grove, the Central Section winner, on Wednesday at 7:30. De La Salle was awarded the second seed and will face the winner of a Pleasant Valley-Vallejo out-of-bracket matchup. Oakland Tech, the last team to beat both the Panthers and Spartans before Saturday, was given the top seed.