Twenty years ago, it was the most unexpected and utterly shocking boys’ prep basketball playoff run in the history of San Mateo County — before or since. And it came within an eyelash of ending in triumphant fashion.
The unanticipated, improbable, near-Cinderella tale of the gritty, underdog Capuchino High School team and its coach, Pete Harames, came to a last-second, deflating and numbing conclusion on a Saturday afternoon in March in front of 7,000 spectators at what is now Oracle Arena. The glass slipper didn't quite fit, but it was close, oh, so tantalizingly close.
The San Bruno public school was locked in a nail-biting struggle for the California state Division IV basketball championship against favored Verbum Dei, a storied Catholic school hoops program from Los Angeles.
The Miracle Mustangs, down by a single point, had a chance to tie or win the game with 1.9 seconds left in regulation. One of Cap’s best players, guard Devoir Funches, had been fouled; he went to the free-throw line with a one-and-one opportunity. He missed the first shot, time ran out and the contest was over. Verbum Dei survived, 60-59.
Solid season just got better
The Mustangs finished the regular season tied for second in the Peninsula Athletic League with four losses. As a Division IV entrant in the Central Coast Section playoffs, Capuchino won its first two games (both on the road) before losing to Valley Christian in the championship game, 76-73, in a double-overtime thriller at San Jose State University.
That defeat meant Cap would be a road warrior once more in the far-flung California Interscholastic Federation Northern California playoffs. No problem. The Mustangs were getting used to traveling. They kicked off their NorCal tour by heading for Orland (over three hours by bus from San Bruno) and dusting off the home team, 58-50.
Harames, a 1963 Capuchino graduate, recalls that, “There were about 1,000 people packed into the Orland gym. We had about 10 fans there.”
Next up was a one-hour trek across the Golden Gate Bridge to take on Marin Catholic. Cap upset MC, 60-50. That victory meant Harames’ crew had a date with another strong Marin County outfit, Drake, for the NorCal crown at UC-Davis. Drake, of course, was a big favorite.
Down big early, Cap rallies
After trailing 17-4 early, going 1-for-13 from the floor, the Mustangs got their act together and wound up getting past the shocked Pirates, 51-48. The losers were so surprised and disheartened their coach didn’t emerge from the locker room for half an hour after the game. And so it was on to Oakland for the ultimate test.
By that time, Cap’s approximately 900-member student body, staff and alumni, not to mention the community surrounding the school, were in a state of giddy excitement. No one had predicted anything like this. The experience had come right out of the blue. It seemed like a replay of Hoosiers. But it wasn’t a movie; it was all very real.
Brian Gomes, a big-time rebounder for that 94-95 team and currently a public school teacher in San Francisco, says those were heady days. When the playoffs began, he remembers that the team believed it could make a run. Then, he says, “Momentum built and it all took on a life of its own.”
Overcoming challenges
The week leading up to the championship game was a blur. Harames, a history teacher at Parkside Intermediate School in San Bruno, had traveled to Washington D.C. as part of an eighth-grade civics program. He missed the first couple of days of practice. His assistant, Rick Hanson,Mills current coach, directed those workouts.
Because of some miscommunication, Cap’s coaches did not have a tape of Verbum Dei. A Mustang alum in Southern California, Kit Ruona, one of the school’s basketball stars from the Cap glory years of the 1950s, sent a written report which was helpful. Still, the Mustangs were, in essence, flying blind. But they knew that Verbum Dei was tall, talented and very athletic.
Harames, currently the head basketball coach at Burlingame, remembers warmups prior to the title game when he got his first close-up look at the opponents.
“I knew we were going to have to rebound to compete with them,” he says now. “But, when the game started, Gomes and (Mike) Brown (who most of fourth quarter after fouling out) were rebounding so hard that you could hear it. I knew then we had a chance.”
Gomes agrees.
“After about a minute,” he says, “I knew we could play with those guys.”
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As the tense affair proceeded, it became obvious that not only was Capuchino not intimidated by Verbum Dei, the aggressive Mustangs were taking it to the Eagles at every opportunity. Cap took a 59-58 lead on a Gomes layin off a Tony Graf feed with 19 seconds to play. Then Verbum Dei went ahead for good on a follow-shot at 5.1 seconds. Seconds later, Devoir Funches was fouled.
The arena was in an uproar. The pressure was stifling. Few fans were seated. Carl Reyna, a longtime Capuchino loyalist and eccentric local character who regularly sat on the Mustang bench next to the coaches, could barely contain himself. Mute, he assumed a prayerful pose. He had been sitting throughout the game in ex-Warriors coach Don Nelson's chair. Nelson had been fired just weeks before. The scene, frankly, was surreal. You couldn't make up this stuff.
In the aftermath of the loss, it was tough to deal with it. Harames, for one, says he didn’t look at video of the game for a full year. Then, when he finally did so, he says his team “played great, really terrific.” But those final moments were still painful. “I wished I hadn’t watch it,” he says.
Right man at the line
For the unfortunate Funches, the crucial missed free throw obscured what had been a marvelous overall post-season performance. As the Mustangs’ savvy point guard, he had been in the forefront of every Cap ballgame down the stretch.
Gomes says, “He was great the whole year. We were excited because Verbum Dei had fouled our best free throw shooter. We thought they had made a huge mistake.”
One objective observer of the earlier NorCal wins over Marin Catholic and Drake took the time to write Harames a personal letter lauding Capuchino, which finished the season with a 23-9 record, and, in particular, Funches: “The wrong person to foul in the closing minutes is Devoir Funches; he doesn’t miss.”
But, in the end, no one is perfect.
Capuchino's 1995 playoff results
CCS Division IV Tournament
Capuchino 53, R.L. Stevenson 50
Capuchino 63, San Jose Academy 47
Valley Christian 76, Capuchino 73(CCS final)
CIF NorCal Division IV Tournament
Capuchino 58, Orland 50
Capuchino 60, Marin Catholic 50
Capuchino 51, Drake 48 (NorCal final)
CIF Division IV Championship
Verbum Dei 60, Capuchino 59
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