Prep Basketball : Southern Section 3-A Playoffs : St. John Is La Quinta’s Correct Answer, 57-56

With seven seconds left in Friday night’s game and the score tied at 55 all, Nathan Barker of La Quinta High School fouled Savanna’s Trevor Hoffman in the act of shooting. An already frenzied 1,000 fans in Savanna’s gym raised the din yet another decibel.

Hoffman, the Rebels’ team captain and steadiest player, made the first shot. Jubilation on the Rebel bench. Desolation for the Aztecs. He missed the second, but Savanna had a 56-55 lead. La Quinta inbounded the ball and called a time out with three seconds left in the first round game of the Southern Section 3-A playoff game.

As play resumed, the Aztecs passed the ball to Scott St. John. Here was Hoffman’s mirror-image for La Quinta. Steady, sure-handed and deadly accurate. And Friday night, lucky. His 20-foot jumper at the buzzer banked off the glass and went in, launching the Aztecs into the playoffs and sending the Rebels--for the first time in four consecutive playoff appearances--home after the first round.

La Quinta’s 57-56 win came in a game that was characterized by what-ifs and almosts. What if Hoffman had made that second free throw. The Aztecs almost didn’t come back from a sloppy first half. Technically, the game was off the mark. But from the standpoint of intensity and guts, it was pure teen-aged emotion.

The fans stampeded out of the stands after the game, nearly trampling Savanna players who had collapsed, out of disappointment and exhaustion, on the gym floor. La Quinta players were whooping and dancing with their families and friends.

“It was a great high school game,” La Quinta Coach Jim Perry said. His team is 11-11. “That last play (to St. John) has been in since the first day of practice. We told him we didn’t care how he did it, we didn’t care if he kicked it--just put the ball in.

“It might have been luck. But the way he shot the ball tonight, given the course of the game, it would have been unusual if he had missed it.”

For his part, St. John was subdued and a little dazed after the game. The 6-foot 3-inch senior guard was swarmed by Aztec fans and sat signing autographs for some time after the gym emptied.

“It was luck.” St. John said of the winning shot. “During the time out, I knew that I would get the ball and just shoot it. I don’t know, everything I shot tonight seemed to go in.”

That’s almost the way it looked. St. John had uncanny accuracy with his outside jump shot. The instant a Savanna player played the slightest bit off him, St. John would float up and softly deliver a 18 or 20-foot jumper. With this, he scored 23 points. Hoffman has a similar, if more muscular, jump shot. Hoffman can hit baskets while falling away, driving or from the middle of a pack. Probably from the bench, too, although the senior played the entire game. He led all scorers with 25 points.

“Those two kids put on quite a show tonight,” Perry said of Hoffman and St. John. That was true, but St. John didn’t come in until the second act. It was Hoffman who sparked the Rebels (19-8) to an early lead. Savanna had a three-point lead at the end of the first quarter and maintained that margin for much of the first half. Barker’s shot with 2:55 left in the half brought the Aztecs to a tie at 23. Savanna led, 31-25, at halftime.

The second half brought on a changed La Quinta team. The Aztec defense froze up Savanna’s Tim Pittman and forced Hoffman to take low percentage shots. Pittman, who averages 20 points per game, was held to 14 Friday night.

“We went into a little half-court in the second half,” Perry said. “We wanted to change the tempo. Bart Recktenwald and Marty Schneggenburger did a great job for us. Every time he (Pittman) shot, there was a guy in his face.”

A jumper by St. John with 1:10 left in the third quarter gave La Quinta the lead for the first time at 43-41. With the score tied at 55 and Savanna with the ball, the Rebels went into a stall. It was during that four-corner offense that Barker fouled Hoffman.

“Hoffman played a great game for us,” Savanna Coach Tom Gregory said. “He’s got to make those free throws, and 9 times out of 10 he will. I thought they all played hard, but I don’t think we executed. I was fighting complacency all week. Kids look at records, but I knew La Quinta was a good team.”