After watching Merced High’s Diego Aguilar drain six 3-pointers on his way to a 20-point performance in the Bears 19-point victory over Atwater in their first matchup, the Bears shooting star had the Falcons’ attention on Wednesday night. Atwater coach Kanoa Smith turned to his defensive stopper Kahri Boykin to guard Aguilar and the Falcons made a couple other adjustments.

 

Boykin helped limit Aguilar, who is leading the Bears in scoring at just under 15 points per game, to just two points and the Falcons pulled off an upset on the road to hand the Bears their first loss in Central California Conference play with a 57-44 victory at Clemons Court. The Falcons and Bears are now tied atop the CCC standings at 8-1 with one game left to play on Friday.

 

“Diego is the best offensive player in the league and that’s how we treated him,” said Smith, whose team improved to 18-9 this season. “We made some adjustments, based on how we saw we played them last time. We asked some guys to do some difficult things and only concentrate on one side of the ball. It was a hell of a job by Kahri Boykin, rising to the occasion.”

 

Boykin has found himself guarding the opponent’s top offensive threat since the Falcons closed the right round of CCC play against Buhach Colony. Against the Thunder, Boykin held BC star Carter Chapman to just two made field goals. Chapman was able to score 16 points with the help of 11 made free throws. 

 

Boykin came to the coaches and asked for the challenge of being matchup up against the opponent’s best player. “I’ve always had a love for defense my whole life,” Boykin said. “Coming into this season, my goal was just to be a champion and I’ve always felt defense wins championships. I kind of asked coach if I could have that role of guarding the best players on the other team and coach trusted me in that role.”

 

Boykin face-guarded Aguilar all over the court, fighting through screens and trailing the Bears senior wherever he went. Boykin even enlisted the help of his parents to get ready for this big task in a huge game. “The biggest thing is just preparation,” Boykin said. “You watch a lot of film. I watched a lot of game film on (Aguilar). I have to give a big shoutout to my parents, they helped me watch a lot of game film. They helped me analyze how he played and after that, it’s just about execution at that point.”

 

Smith also made other adjustments for the rematch, fixing the alignment on the Falcons press break that helped limit the turnover on Wednesday night. This time it was Atwater using a 17-0 run in the first half to open up a 25-6 lead midway through the second quarter. They did their best to prevent the Bears (19-8) from scoring easy baskets and used their height to limit Merced to one on most possessions.

 

The Falcons were led offensively by Peter Idialu’s 16 points. Sylas Austin added 13 points and A.J. Banks scored 11. Point guard Tyler Curtis took the lead against the Bears press and kept the ball out of harms way for the most part.

 

“We’ve been putting (Boykin) on the best guy every night and for the most part he’s done a great job,” Smith said. “I think that has gotten teams out of rhythm and when teams get out of rhythm, it’s going to come down to a more physical kind of nature type of game, it comes down to the best athletes and we’re really fortunate to have the bigger team most nights.”

 

The Bears did battle back as Jordan Thomas and Valentin Vasquez both scored 12 points to help Merced cut the lead 39-35 early in the fourth quarter. However, the Falcons responded with a 15-0 run to put the game away with six different players scoring during the run.

 

The Falcons were able to stand in front of the freight train that had been Merced, who had won eight consecutive CCC games by an average scoring margin of just under 27 points per game. “Merced is special,” Smith said. “I didn’t see it last time because I was focused on the game and players, but after the game, I went back and watched clips and I see their parents standing up, throwing up shark fins and everything else and it was like whoa. It’s tough in this day and age, and you see their parents who are happy for other kids on the team, that’s special.”

 

“I knew it would take a special effort from us to win this game, especially in their place,” Smith added. “I knew we would have to get lucky in the sense that shots were not going to fall for them. They missed a lot of bunnies. We’ve been there plenty of times. We had to play well and we had to get a little bit of luck and both of those things happened.”

 

Both teams now head into a crosstown rival game on Friday night with a shot to claim at least a share of the CCC championship. Atwater will host Buhach Colony on Friday night. Golden Valley will travel to Merced. “It feels good but it’s not over yet,” Boykin said. “We still have Buhach Colony and anything can happen. If we play the way we can play then the sky is the limit.”

Buhach Colony 47, Los Banos 42 – The Thunder outscored the Tigers 14 to 4 in the fourth quarter to become the first team to win 20 games in a season in program history. Elijah Garza made four 3-pointers to lead BC with 12 points. Carter Chapman and Bronx Silveira both finished with 11 points for the Thunder (20-7 overall, 6-3 CCC).

 

Golden Valley 57, El Capitan 47 – Elijah Carter scored 15 points and Zay Goode added 14 as the Cougars 13-14 overall and 2-7 in the CCC.

 

Shawn Jansen is the MUSHD Program Manager Digital Media. He can be reached at Sjansen@muhsd.org.