A Nightmare Finish to Santa Paula’s Dream Season

They were sleepless in Santa Paula on Friday night.

Members of the boys’ basketball team tossed and turned as they agonized over a 96-94, double-overtime loss to Duarte in the Southern Section Division III-A quarterfinals.

“It was hard,” senior center Dan Herrera said. “I couldn’t sleep at all.”

Coach Tom Donahue stared at the ceiling, second-guessing himself on a crucial decision with 30 seconds left in the game, and stewing over the Duarte coach who apparently snubbed Donahue afterward.

And Joe Jauregui, principal at a continuation school in Santa Paula and the team’s public-address announcer, wondered what had hit him after he tried to keep the peace when many of the 2,500 fans at Ventura College swarmed onto the court and staged a brief brawl seconds after the final buzzer.

Said Herrera: “I looked up and it was a rumble.”

The wildly frantic game ended a historic season for the Cardinals, who posted a 23-3 record, won the Frontier League title for the first time since 1972 and ended Santa Clara’s 91-game league winning streak. Santa Paula’s three defeats came by a total of four points, including two losses in double overtime.

Donahue can’t help thinking Friday’s outcome would have been different had he made a better decision during the second overtime. With 30 seconds left and the score tied, 94-94, Santa Paula had possession on an inbounds play.

Senior Ben Tryk struggled to find an open man and finally threw errantly to beat the five-second count, giving the ball to Duarte. The Falcons (23-5) played for the last shot, a running bank shot by Eric Holmes that just beat the buzzer.

“I called the wrong play,” Donahue said. “I should have called a play with more picks to make it a little easier for us to get the ball in. As soon as the game was over I started thinking about that play, and I was thinking about it into the night and into the morning.”

Also disturbing Donahue’s sleep was the behavior of Duarte Coach Mike Swanegan. As soon as Holmes’ shot gave Duarte the victory, the Falcons stormed the court, celebrating with their fans as they poured from the stands.

Donahue kept his players near the bench, waiting for the Duarte celebration to end and the postgame handshake between coaches to begin. He is still waiting.

“I was disappointed in their coach,” Donahue said. “He acted like he had never won a game in his life. I made my players stand there, waiting till he was done acting like a fool. You know, when we beat Santa Clara, my first reaction was to go shake (Coach Lou Cvijanovich’s) hand.

“Oh well, I guess I’m just mad because I wanted our guys to keep playing.”

*

After Donahue escorted his players to the locker room to keep them out of harm’s way, he made a point to hug each member of the all-senior starting lineup: Chris Canon, Manuel Escamilla, Teva Johnson, Herrera and Tryk.

“I told them I was proud of them and was going to miss them,” Donahue said. “I told them not to be strangers.”

Donahue’s next task is to ensure all five continue their educations. Said Donahue: “I think all of them can play in college.”

*

Four seasons after the Southern Section instituted a dual-meet team tournament in wrestling, officials are tinkering with its format to ease the burden on weary wrestlers.

Under a plan backed by Ventura Coach Paul Clementi, who sits on the section’s advisory committee for wrestling, the tournament next season would be moved back one week and compressed from two days to one.

This year, dual-meet tournaments in four divisions consisted of two rounds conducted a week apart ending Thursday. Because the meets are held just days before the section’s individual division championships during the first round and right before the Masters meet in the second, coaches fear wrestlers involved in both tournaments are overburdened.

Conducting the tournament on one day, a week before the division championships, would allow wrestlers to make weight one time fewer and provide recovery time for them to concentrate on the individual tournament.

Clementi, who led Ventura to the 3-A Division championship in 1992, the first year of the dual-meet tournament, enthusiastically supports the tournament but remembers the toll it took on his team. Ventura clinched the title on a Wednesday, and nearly half the team competed in the Masters meet that Saturday.

“The wear and tear on kids is unbelievable,” he said. “In ‘92, the Thursday after the dual meet was our worst practice of the year. I think the dual-meet tournament is great, but we’re making it tougher on kids than we need to.”

Bill Clark, section administrator in charge of wrestling, said preliminary results show most schools favor the change. He expects the section to adopt the new format, possibly as early as the next general council meeting March 10.

*

Most coaches in Ventura County seem to favor a proposal that would split the Marmonte and Channel into three leagues, with the five Oxnard Unified School District schools forming their own league. Camarillo softball Coach Darwin Tolzin goes against the crowd.

Camarillo has become one of the Marmonte League’s top teams in the recent years, and Tolzin enjoys the competition of what he calls the toughest softball league in the state. In the proposed plan, Camarillo would join Channel Islands, Oxnard, Hueneme and Rio Mesa in a separate league.

“Nobody would ever beat us,” Tolzin said. “I’d rather lose and play in the Marmonte League.”

* Contributing: Jeff Fletcher.