Notebook / Sam Farmer : Mumolo Can Only Relive Miss in His Mind

It’s probably best that the fans stood when they did. Otherwise, Dominic Mumulo might still be in front of his television, remote control in hand, reviewing the layup that wasn’t.

Mumulo, a junior forward at St. Francis High, missed a left-handed layup against La Canada with five seconds to play last Wednesday as the Golden Knights lost their first-round Southern Section 3-A Division basketball playoff game, 64-63. However, Mumulo says, the shot was no gimme.

“I was going to go up with my right hand but I thought I probably would have gotten stuffed so I switched to my left,” said Mumulo, who was hardly a goat in the game after scoring 16 points. “I shot it and the ball seemed to get caught in the corner of the rim and it didn’t quite get over.

“It wasn’t something that really depressed me but it was something I could have made. Anybody on the team could have made it.”

Mumulo’s father videotaped the game but failed to capture much of the fourth quarter because fans were on their feet. The fact that the painful moment wasn’t saved for posterity bothers Dominic.

“I really wanted to see it,” he said. “I wanted to see how we unfolded.”

Falcon flop: In its 96-66 loss to Rio Mesa in the second round of the Southern Section 4-A Division playoffs Friday, the Crescenta Valley basketball team made three of 14 free throws. Despite those miserable numbers, though, the Falcons trailed by just two at intermission.

“We were feeling good, knowing that we weren’t shooting free throws that well,” Coach John Goffredo said. “We were thinking, ‘Geez, we can win this thing.’ ”

That thinking didn’t last long: Crescenta Valley was outscored, 26-10, in the third quarter.

Goffredo, however, can take heart in the fact that next season, for the first time in his 11 years as coach, Crescenta Valley will have three returning starters: Forwards Bruce Jacobson and Paul Matijasevic and guard Lamar Breeding.