Crenshaw Wins State Title on Caldwell’s Shot, 70-69

It came down to one shot.

Twice.

Crenshaw’s Ronald Caldwell hit his 10-footer from the baseline with five seconds to play, but Matt Muehlebach’s response from 25 feet out for Oakland Bishop O’Dowd bounced away at the buzzer, and that was the bottom line as the Cougars came from behind and then had to hold on to win their second straight State Division I basketball title, 70-69, Saturday night before 14,300 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. It was the Cougars’ third state title in four years.

It was also a game Crenshaw easily could have lost. Bishop O’Dowd led by four, 65-61, with 1:02 left in the game, and Crenshaw did not get the lead back until Caldwell got the ball on a designed play after a Cougar timeout, took two dribbles and hit from the baseline.

Then it was O’Dowd’s turn. The Dragons also called a timeout and had Gio Welsh inbounds the ball to Erik Fisher, who pushed the ball up court and then passed it across midcourt to Muehlebach. He angled to the right side of the basket and tossed up the final attempt.

“I was thinking about the last shot all during the timeout,” Muehlebach said. “Everything worked out well until it hit the rim. It’s a real high-and-low feeling. If it goes in, we go wild. If it doesn’t, you saw what happened.”

Said Bishop O’Dowd Coach Mike Phelps: “With five seconds left, we wanted to get it to Matt. We were very pleased with the shot we got. He had shot us into the lead and he was dropping them in earlier. Had it gone in, it would have capped an incredible game.”

It was a remarkable game, though, at least in the sense that things didn’t necessarily work out as they were supposed to.

So much for the Cleveland theory. So much for the Gary McKnight theory that last week’s meeting between his Santa Ana Mater Dei team and Crenshaw for the Southern Regional championship was the game for California title and that “the one in Oakland is a token.”

This game was anything but a token. Just ask Crenshaw.

Maybe Crenshaw should have gone back to using a girls ball for the first half, as it mistakenly did against Mater Dei the previous Saturday.

The heavily favored Cougars scored the first four points on baskets by Thompson and Caldwell but never led again through the first two quarters. In fact, it took a three-point play by Thompson with seven seconds left in the half to bring them within five at halftime, 33-28, the closest they had been since Bishop O’Dowd led by four with 2:07 remaining in the first quarter.

O’Dowd, making its third appearance in the Division I final in the five years of the State competition, carried the underdog label because of its lack of size and a 14-point December loss to Cleveland, which Crenshaw in turn beat for the City title earlier this month.

Even Coach Mike Phelps didn’t sound too confident late in the week, when he told the San Francisco Examiner: “I don’t know how we’ll react when we get out there. All I know is we’ll do the best we can.”

But the Dragons looked very good in scoring 12 unanswered points and making six of eight free throws to close out the first quarter with an 18-6 lead. It didn’t hurt, of course, that Crenshaw was missing layups and didn’t make any trips to the free-throw line.

They increased the advantage to 12 on several occasions in the second quarter and looked firmly in control. Guard Matt Muehlebach had 12 points, including 5 of 5 from the field, four of which were 22-footers from the baseline. Center Phil Palmer, their tallest starter at 6-4 1/2, had nine.

Caldwell also had 12 points at halftime to lead Crenshaw, which stayed in the game in the second quarter by hitting 10 of 11 free throws. Thompson missed several inside shots and had only five points on two-of-eight shooting.

The Cougars, who have won 18 straight, grabbed the momentum back midway through the third quarter, and Phelps was forced to call a timeout as the lead dwindled to three, 43-40. They then went ahead, 45-44, as Thompson scored on a rebounds, was fouled and converted the free throw for a three-point play.

They led by three going into the final eight minutes, 49-46, and outscored O’Dowd, 21-13, in the third quarter to do it.