Patrick Henry’s Ziegenfuss Wins 400th

Mira Mesa had this good luck charm of sorts sitting on the scorer’s table at Patrick Henry High Friday night. It was a plastic crocodile. Every starter went by and touched it before taking the court, and every time a sub entered the game, he touched it, too.

Well, they all might as well have been touching ice.

Yep, we’re talking cold. Mira Mesa missed its first four shots of the game, then made one, then missed . . .

With just over two minutes remaining in the first quarter, Patrick Henry held a 15-2 lead. The Patriots went on to an 84-66 rout of the Marauders and in doing so took sole possession of first place in the City Eastern League.

Patrick Henry, ranked fifth in the county, remained undefeated in City Eastern League play at 4-0 (17-3 overall). No. 6 Mira Mesa fell to 16-6, 3-1 and into second place.

But the celebration afterward had little to do with the fact that Patrick Henry had just scraped Mira Mesa off its back. It was also Coach Fritz Ziegenfuss’ 400th career victory (Ziegenfuss is the only coach in Patrick Henry’s history; he started in 1968).

“It (No. 400) never dawned on me” Ziegenfuss said when asked about his thoughts during the game. “It just isn’t as important as this single game. It’s just something that happened.”

It happened mainly because of the hot shooting of guard Butch Reese and forward Jason Lonsdale.

Lonsdale helped bury the Marauders with four timely three-pointers. Two came at the opening of the second quarter to make it 30-11. Another at the opening of the second half made it 44-29.

While Lonsdale made the big shots and finished with 19, Reese was quietly scoring 27 with a layup here, a base-line jumper there and 10 points in the final quarter when both teams were substituting freely.

Reese missed just four shots all night.

No wonder Mira Mesa couldn’t catch up.

“I hadn’t seen Mira Mesa play all year, but I think they just had an off shooting night,” Ziegenfuss said. “And we had a really good game shooting.

“This team can get hot, and it’s really important to us, because we’re not powerful.”

J.J. Rowlett led Mira Mesa with 22 points. Marc Ziegler and Cal Catham each added 11.