Nothing went its way for the Aragon boys’ basketball team in the first half as the Dons took on Woodside in a crucial Peninsula Athletic League Ocean Division matchup.
The Dons came into the game tied for the division lead with Hillsdale, while the Wildcats were a game behind. And while the Wildcats could not win the Ocean crown Tuesday night, they certainly could have been eliminated from contention.
But Aragon gave the Woodside all kinds of confidence by halftime, with a 13-point first half. But what felt like an insurrmountable deficit at the break was, in reality, only seven points. The Dons changed up their offensive attack in the second half, outscoring the Wildcats 33-21 to post a 46-41 lead.
“Seven points could easily have been 17 points,” said Aragon head coach Hosea Patton of his team’s halftime deficit.
“As bad as we played, we were still in it,” Patton continued. “We’ve been in this situation before and these kids are resilient.”
The win by Aragon (10-1 PAL Ocean, 18-5 overall), coupled with Hillsdale’s 52-35 win over Oceana, means the Dons and Knights are still tied atop the Ocean Division standings with the division finale Friday night — Aragon hosts Mills at 7:30 p.m., while Hillsdale (10-1, 13-10) closes by hosting San Mateo at 7:45 p.m.
With the loss, Woodside (8-3, 11-11) was eliminated from title contention.
But for 16 minutes, it appeared the Wildcats would give themselves a shot at staying in the race, but they didn’t exactly burn up the nets, either. Aragon scored the first three points of the game on an Armando Cajbon free throw and a Kaleb Brodeth drive to the hoop.
The Dons didn’t score for the final 4:46 of the first quarter.
Woodside, meanwhile, got on the scoreboard on a short jumper from Luke Grech. That was followed by four straight free throws — two each from Owen Kinder and Josh Fitzsimmons — as the Wildcats led 6-3 after the first period.
In the second, Woodside changed tactics. Content to bomb away from behind the 3-point line in the opening period, the second quarter saw the Wildcats attacking the basket as they scored on their first four shots on the quarter, with Joseph Martinez’s baseline drive and layup putting Woodside up 14-3 with 5:37 left in the half.
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When Brodeth hit a pair of free throws at the 5:22 mark, it ended a scoring drought of more than seven minutes. When Qinrun Zhang drained a corner 3-pointer, it was the Dons’ first field goal since Brodeth’s score in the first quarter — more than eight minutes.
Kinder scored on a putback to put Woodside back up 11, 16-5 with 5:05 left in the quarter, but the Wildcats managed only four more points the rest of the way and only led 20-13 at halftime.
Patton couldn’t quite put his finger on his team’s struggles.
“Three points in the first quarter? That’s not us,” Patton said. “We knew what [the Wildcats] do. For whatever reason, we froze.”
It was a different story in the second half. The Dons got 3s Cajbon and Zhang in the opening minute of the third quarter and Aragon was down just a point, 20-19. After that, the Dons went on the attack. Like Woodside did to the Dons in the first half, Aragon did in the third quarter to the Wildcats, seemingly scoring at will off the dribble.
“The plan was to get downhill, put pressure on the defense and then make a good decision,” Patton said.
After Woodside got a bucket from Colin Ulrich and a hanging flip shot from Fitzsimmons to push the Wildcats’ lead to 24-19, the Dons went on a 6-0 run to take their first lead since the opening minutes of the game. Brodeth flipped home a shot off the bounce, Zhang scored on a baseline layup and Cajbon also scored a layup and Aragon had a 25-24 lead with 4:41 left in the third.
But Woodside closed on a 7-4 run to lead 30-29 going into the fourth.
The Dons then put the pedal to the metal over the final eight minutes. An Ulrich bucket opened the scoring in the third for a 32-29 Woodside lead, but Aragon responded with 6-0 run tot ake the lead for good. Alex Ziskind scored on a teardrop, Brodeth connected on another circus shot and Cajbon rounded out the run by grabbing a defensive rebound and going coast-to-coast for the layup and a 35-32 lead with 6:01 to play. The Dons then did just enough down the stretch to keep the Wildcats at arm’s length.
Aragon was led by Brodeth, who finished with a game-high 12 points. Cajbon was right behind, finishing with 11. Woodside was led by Marco Antonino, who scored 11 points.
“They knew what was at stake,” Patton said of his team. “They banded together. That’s what this team prides itself on.”
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