San Diego Section Playoffs : Sweetwater Runs Over El Capitan to Advance

The Sweetwater High School boys basketball team made it clear Wednesday night that it is not going to alter its style of play regardless of the situation.

The quick-shooting, full-court pressing Red Devils beat El Capitan, 77-69, in a first round 3-A Conference playoff game at Sweetwater High.

Despite building a 35-23 lead at halftime and a 55-47 lead after three quarters, Sweetwater didn’t slow down the pace.

“Our coach doesn’t believe in stalling,” Sweetwater point guard Larry Willson said. “And we have to keep shooting because we don’t have the best ball handlers in the county.”

The Sweetwater offense centers around Willson, the floor leader. The Red Devils are strong around the basket with Mahlon Williams and Carlos Siragusa, and Matt Simmons will take the outside shot. Sweetwater led San Diego County in scoring with an average of 93.7 points-per-game during the regular season.

“Our kids are conditioned to play a certain style of basketball for 32 minutes,” Sweetwater Coach Gary Zarecky said. “The team isn’t concerned about a run of points against them.”

And Sweetwater survived two runs by El Capitan.

Sweetwater’s, 35-23, halftime lead was closed to 39-35 just two minutes into the third quarter. El Capitan’s Brad Burton scored 8 of his 14 points in the third quarter to lead the comeback. The lead remained between four and six points until Carlos Siragusa, who finished with 17 points, put the Red Devils up by eight, 55-47, with a tap in at the third quarter buzzer.

The Vaqueros, who finished the season 18-6, made a second run at the start of the fourth quarter. Darin Curtis’ layup 55 seconds into the fourth quarter capped a 6-0 El Capitan rally to pull it within two, 55-53. But the Vaqueros could get no closer.

“Each time they cut the lead to four points,” Zarecky said, “We brought it right back up to 10.”

Sweetwater took control of the game when Matt Simmons hit two field goals from the left corner and baskets by Willson and Howard Scott increased the Sweetwater lead to 65-55.

Willson added 16 points for Sweetwater and Simmons and Scott had 12 points each. Williams had 10. Steve Burroughs scored 17 points for No. 5 El Capitan, and Mitch Burton added 11.

The win sets up a rematch between No. 4 Sweetwater (24-3) and the defending 3-A champion Poway (22-1) on Saturday at Mira Mesa High at 8 p.m. No. 1-ranked Poway upset Sweetwater last season in the first round of the playoffs before going on to win the title.

“We’ve been looking for Poway since we got beat last year,” Zarecky said. “They didn’t beat us physically, they beat us mentally. And I was outcoached by a superb Poway coach (Neville Saner).

“But they were the underdogs last year. This year we are the underdogs.”