Prep Basketball : Southern Section 4-A Playoffs : Capo Valley Breaks Redlands’ Streak, 74-70

So much for the home-court advantage. Capistrano Valley High School dispelled that notion by upsetting host Redlands, 74-70, Friday night in the opening round of the Southern Section 4-A playoffs.

Mind you, this was no ordinary road victory. Redlands had won 17 straight games at home spanning three seasons before Capistrano Valley’s Shawn Reed and Gregg Bujnovsky made free throws in the final 14 seconds to seal the win.

Capistrano Valley (21-5) will meet Estancia (25-3) in the second round on Tuesday night in a game pitting the county’s most successful teams in the playoffs over the past five years. Redlands, the Citrus Belt League champion, finished the year with a 17-8 record.

The Terriers will most likely remember this game for two critical traveling violations in the final 37 seconds of play that cost them a victory. The game also was an uphill battle for Redlands after it fell behind, 26-20, in the first quarter and saw its best player, Vic Wharton, go to the bench with three quick fouls.

Capistrano Valley will surely remember this game as one in which forward Tom Manley dominated play inside with 26 points and 14 rebounds before fouling out with 3:52 left. Then, of course, there was the end of Redlands’ streak.

“This is a tough place to play in, but then they haven’t played anybody like us in their past 17 games here,” Cougar Coach Mark Thornton said. “It took one of the better games we’ve played this year to beat Redlands.”

What makes Redlands’ gymnasium such a difficult facility for opposing teams? It’s certainly no pit. In fact, it’s one of the newer buildings on campus and seats 2,200 fans. No, it’s the fans.

They started arriving an hour before tipoff and had one side of the gym packed a half hour before game time. Most of the students never sat and the noise level at times was deafening.

But the hostile crowd didn’t seem to bother the Cougars. Remember, this is a team that has beaten Arroyo Grande and San Gorgonio on the road in recent years.

The Cougars made themselves right at home in the first quarter, hitting 11 of 14 shots to set the tone for the first half as Manley shredded the Terriers’ 2-3 zone defense for 14 points on 7 consecutive shots. Things didn’t get any better for Redlands when Wharton went to the bench with 2:45 left in the first quarter with three fouls.

But Redlands Coach Randy Genung gambled by inserting Wharton back into the lineup to start the second half and the Terriers were behind by only three points, 43-40, after guard Mark Smith stole a pass and dunked to the delight of the crowd with five seconds left in the half.

“I thought there was a possibility we could fall behind by 20 points without Vic in the lineup, so I took a chance,” Genung said. “There’s no tomorrow in the playoffs, so what the heck?”

Wharton became a liability on defense, but the Terriers desperately needed his rebounding and scoring if they hoped to stay in the game. Amazingly, Wharton never received his fourth foul and almost won the game for Redlands with 17 points and 12 rebounds.

Redlands held a 56-55 lead going into the last quarter by utilizing an effective full-court press that created six Cougar turnovers in the third quarter. The lead changed on nine occasions in the last quarter before Capistrano Valley took the lead for good, 71-69, on Jason Trask’s follow shot with 1:34 remaining.

Redlands managed to trim the deficit to one point when Wharton made one of two free throw attempts, but the Terriers turned the ball over twice down the stretch and lost the game in the process.

Two traveling violations--one by Wharton after he rebounded his own missed free throw with 37 seconds remaining and another by Glenn Trunnelle with 15 seconds left--proved to be Redlands’ downfall. Trunnelle’s violation was especially costly.

Redlands’ Nick Schichtle had stolen the ball from Reed with 28 seconds left and his team trailing, 71-70. Schichtle passed to Trunnelle, who drove the lane and passed to a wide-open Wharton. But Trunnelle stumbled through the lane before the pass and Wharton’s go-ahead basket was negated by a traveling violation.

“I’m not going to comment on that play, but I will say that the refs took the game away from the players,” Genung said. “I was impressed with Capo Valley. I knew they could shoot the lights out, but I didn’t think they were that strong inside.”

Manley, who made 13 of 18 shots, said the high post position was open throughout the game.

“It was driving me crazy sitting on the bench at the end, but we won and that’s all that counts,” he said.