The Merced High boys basketball team took care of business on Friday night as they breezed to an 80-42 victory over Golden Valley. Shortly after the final buzzer, Merced P.A. announcer Luke Marvulli announced to the crowd that Buhach Colony had upset Atwater 42-41.

 

The Bears win and Atwater loss meant Merced had won the outright Central California Conference championship, earning back-to-back titles. “The players were mobbed by the student section and the gym went nuts as it was an all out celebration after that,” said Merced assistant coach Jake Meneley said. “It was really a special night.”

The Bears thought their chances of an outright championship might have slipped away after a 57-44 loss to Atwater on Wednesday night. Meneley said: “For coach (Adrian) Sanchez, the message was simple after Wednesday night's loss to Atwater. ‘We have to bounce back. We have to play our brand of basketball, play for the name that's across the front of our jerseys because we still have a lot to play for. No excuses."

 

Merced came out and jumped on the Cougars from the start, outsourcing Golden Valley 19-4 in the first quarter and stretching the lead to 49-20 at the half. Diego Aguilar made five of his six 3-pointers in the first two quarters as he finished with 18 points. Aiden Matsuo scored all 12 of his points in the first half.

 

According to Meneley, Sanchez went over the Atwater game meticulously with the team prior to Thursday practice addressing uncharacteristic errors the Bears made, including poor shot selection, defensive mistakes, not boxing out on rebounds and examples of lack of energy and effort. After their worst shooting night of the season in which the Bears made just 18 of 60 shots from the floor against Atwater, Merced made 31 of 50 shots against GV.

 

Merced senior Jordan Thomas was questionable after taking a hard fall to the floor toward the end of Wednesday’s game, but he played and scored 15 points. Valentin Vasquez added 10 points for the Bears, who won their 20th game on the season to improve to 20-8 overall and 9-1 in the CCC.

Meanwhile, in Atwater, Buhach Colony played the spoiler role in preventing the Falcons from earning a share of the CCC championship with a 42-41 win at Falcon Arena in a game that was close throughout and went back and forth.

 

Thunder senior Carter Chapman led the way with 12 points. Chapman found himself in the spot every kid imagines when they are outside shooting baskets in front of their house or at the park, his team down late and the ball in his hands and that was the position Chapman found himself on Friday night with the Falcons’ leading 38-37 with just over 2 minutes left in the game.

 

“It’s every time,” Chapman said. “I put myself in that position every time but today was different, there were people. It was fun. It was a good game tonight.” Chapman drained a 3-pointer to give the Thunder a 40-38 lead with 2:22 remaining. He then drove to the basket and scored to extend the lead to 42-38 with 1:40 left.

 

Atwater’s Logan Sanchez drilled a clutch 3-pointer to pull the Falcons within 42-41 with 25 seconds left. Atwater was able to get the ball one last time in the final seconds, but the ball bounced off of Tyler Curtis’ foot in the backcourt and he could only pick up the ball and heave it at the buzzer, but the shot was offline. 

 

The victory set off a wild celebration for the Thunder, who snapped an 11-game losing streak against their crosstown rivals. “This was big, this was big for the program and big for the boys who have been here and trusted us,” said Buhach Colony coach Isaiah Flores-Aguirre, whose team improved to 21-7 overall and 7-3 in the CCC. “When we took over this program we had a lot of things to do and we said it’s going to take some time but these kids trusted us. For us to pull it out and grind it out like that, it really meant a lot to them.”

 

A.J. Banks led Atwater (18-10, 8-2 CCC) with 15 points. Bronx Silveira hit three 3-pointers and finished with 10 points for the Thunder. “Tonight we had nothing to lose,” Chapman said. “We knew we weren’t going to get first place but we knew they had a chance to get first place, and we didn’t want our crosstown rivals to win. It’s amazing, we were all (back in the locker room) yelling, we were all hyped. It was a great feeling.”

 

The Sac-Joaquin Section will release the playoff matchups on Saturday with the first round of postseason set to start next week.

 

Los Banos 71, El Capitan 70 – The Gauchos lost their season finale despite 17 points from Zach Owens and 13 points from Charles Polk.  

 

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