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St. Mary’s cruises past Oak Grove

By Nathan Fox Daily Planet Correspondent
Thursday March 07, 2002

The St. Mary’s boys basketball team found their rhythm shortly before halftime, cruising to an eventual 74-58 victory over Oak Grove (San Jose) and moved one step closer to a CIF Northern Section crown. 

A sluggish Panther team struggled in the raucous Oak Grove gym in the early going, and it appeared likely that the Panthers had made a grave mistake by overlooking the Eagles (28-2 in the regular season), anticipating a potential Saturday rematch against Oakland Tech, which defeated the Panthers early in the season. 

“All our preparation has been to play on Saturday against Oakland Tech,” St. Mary’s coach Jose Caraballo said. 

But the first 14 minutes of Wednesday’s game were all Eagles. Leading 23-22 midway through the second quarter, they lit up the home crowd with three consecutive baskets: a powerful one-handed dunk by John Williams, followed by a 15-foot jumper by Williams - and then, impossibly, an alley-oop pass by guard Gerald Green that missed his intended target completely – and fell instead into the hoop for a 3-pointer and a 30-22 Eagle lead. 

“We were a little dead in the first half,” St. Mary’s center Simon Knight said. “Then we started picking up in spurts. We decided we needed to come out with heart, come out running. That’s what we did – we just took it to ‘em.” 

The first of those spurts came to close the first half, as the Panthers went on an eight-point run in the final minute and a half of the second period to draw within one, 33-32. 

Senior guard John Sharper then took over during the third quarter, scoring 10 of his game-high 18 points, and the Panthers pulled away to a 52-42 lead heading into the final period. The Eagles would pull to within three points with 4:29 to play in the game, but an 11-point Panther run sealed the victory.