Tafoya Gives Oxnard View From Top
After scoring throughout the game from long range, Damian Tafoya hit a two-foot shot with five seconds left to give Oxnard High a 61-60 victory over Hueneme in a Pacific View League game Friday night.
Tafoya, a 5-foot-8 senior guard who scored 27 points, ran down a loose ball after teammate Jacob Galloway missed a three-point shot and slashed his way inside for a basket that clinched the inaugural championship of the league.
Hueneme (10-11, 4-2 in league play) got the ball to leading scorer Robert Luna at the top of the key with three seconds left, but his right foot slipped out from under him as he began his shooting motion and Galloway stole the ball with a second left.
“This is something that we, the seniors like myself and Jacob and Gary [Eberhardt], have been working for all season,” Tafoya said after tying his season scoring high. “We really wanted to win.”
Oxnard (18-6, 7-0), ranked No. 9 in the region by The Times, appeared to have cost itself the game when Galloway missed two free throws with 56 seconds left and Tafoya made only one of two with 41 seconds remaining.
But Luna was called for a charging foul with 27 seconds to go.
Oxnard set up a play for Tafoya after a timeout, but he had to pass to Galloway because of the tight defense of Eric Watkins.
Galloway’s shot was long, but Eberhardt tapped the ball to the right side where Tafoya ran it down.
“I just crashed the weak side,” Tafoya said. ‘I fully expected Jacob to make the shot, but I went there just in case.”
Coach Henry Lobo of Oxnard bounded to midcourt with his arms raised after the buzzer sounded. He admitted to feeling pressure to win the first Pacific View championship.
“I didn’t realize how stressful it would be to play all these cross-town rival games,” Lobo said. “Now maybe I can get some sleep.”
Coach Tom McCollum, who took over a downtrodden Hueneme program three years ago, said he was proud of his team, which was led by Luna’s 21 points.
Oxnard, which has won four consecutive games and 10 of 11, had a 45-40 lead with 1:30 left in the third quarter, but Hueneme scored the final eight points of the quarter to take a 48-45 lead.
The Vikings took a 51-45 lead on a three-pointer by Carlos Bailey with 7:15 remaining before the Yellowjackets began to whittle down the deficit.
Oxnard led, 28-26, at the end of a first half in which each team went on a 10-0 run. The Yellowjackets extended a 12-9 lead to 22-9, but Hueneme countered by scoring 10 consecutive points over a two-minute stretch to narrow its deficit to 22-19.