THE BIG GAME : Sweetwater Wins on Late Surge : Basketball: Red Devils score the final 16 points of the game to beat Southwest, 62-57. Nafarrete leads the rally.

Time was running out on Sweetwater High--time and sole possession of first place in the Metro Conference boys’ basketball standings.

Southwest High had an 11-point lead with four minutes left Friday night, and it appeared to be enough with the clock, the momentum and a capacity crowd of 1,000-plus on its side.

Not quite.

Sweetwater, the defending Division I section champion, became possessed. The Red Devils switched gears, changed their full-court press from man-to-man to a trapping zone and scored the final 16 points of the game to win a 62-57 thriller at Southwest.

Sixteen points in a row. It was an avalanche.

Trailing, 57-46, Mendel Nafarrete, who scored half of the final 16, started it off with a driving layup. He then made a steal and another layup. After a Southwest turnover, Melvin Rushing was fouled and made both free throws. Another turnover, and Nafarrete came back with another layup, then two free throws to cut Southwest’s lead to one, 57-56, with 1:42 left.

After Southwest missed the front end of a one-and-one, Rushing sank a 10-foot jumper in the lane with 1:12 left to give Sweetwater its first lead since midway through the first quarter.

That would prove to be all the Red Devils needed, but two free throws each by Pateros Woodson and Guillermo Ameadia put the game away. Ameadia’s came after Southwest barely missed on a three-point attempt with 10 seconds left that would have tied the game.

With the victory, Sweetwater improved to 18-5, 10-1. Southwest, which had won seven in a row and 10 of 12 since being routed by Sweetwater, 74-58, in December, fell to 14-7, 8-3.

Sweetwater’s incredible run came after Red Devil Coach David Ybarra called a timeout with 4:34 to play. At that point, he re-inserted starters Rushing and Brandon Tennant, who were in foul trouble, and gave his players a pep talk.

Ybarra: “My last timeout, I said, ‘Just go out there and play. Either you want it or you don’t.’ No diagram. No wisdom. Just get out there and play. We just told them to turn it up a notch.”

Turn it up they did. Sweetwater forced six turnovers down the stretch and made eight of nine free throws. In the first 28 minutes, Southwest had turned the ball over only nine times, and Sweetwater had missed nine of 18 foul shots.