Burlingame boys' basketball team, reigning DIII champs, advances to semifinals after beating PAL rival Capuchino

Hard to beat a team three times in one season? Yes. Impossible? No, as the Panthers’ proved. Burlingame held the Mustangs without a field goal for more than nine minutes in the second half, during which time the Panthers outscored Capuchino 21-3 to pull away for a 62-49 decision.

With the win, Burlingame (19-5) move into Thursday’s semifinals, when the Panthers will host No. 6 Sobrato (17-6), which knocked off No. 3 Saratoga. Burlingame is the defending Division III champion.

“We showed tremendous toughness and grit,” said Burlingame head coach Jeff Dowd. “Our whole game plan was … don’t give them any looks and we did that in half-court set.”

For Burlingame, the game was a story of two halves. In the first two quarters, Panther wing Will Uhrich had a game’s worth of stats, scoring 17 points and pulling down 15 rebounds.

In the second half, it was Burlingame point guard Sean Richardson who took over, scoring 13 straight points bridging the third and fourth quarters.

Uhrich would finish with 22 points and 18 boards, while also coming up with four steals. Richardson added 19 points and three steals.

The Panthers needed all of that as Capuchino (17-9), after a slow start, caught fire midway through the opening quarter and carried that momentum into the second half, but the Mustangs couldn’t close the deal.

Burlingame opened the game with a 3-pointer from Tyler Mausenhund, followed by a three-point play from Jacob Yamagishi.

After Cap responded with back-to-back buckets from Lisiate Lavulo and Nicolas Caruso, Uhrich went on a personal 7-0 run, capping it with a 3 and causing the Mustangs to take a timeout, trailing 13-4.

The brief pause seemed to reset Capuchino because the Mustangs came out of that timeout firing. Isaiah Cruz made a free throw and followed that with a basket off the dribble. Caruso came up with a 3 and the Mustangs were down 13-10 and trailed by just three, 17-14, after the opening period.

In the second, Burlingame went cold from the field as the Mustangs stayed hot. Caruso canned another 3 to open the second period as the Mustangs would start the quarter on a 14-4 run. When Caruso came up with a steal and fastbreak layup, Capuchino held a 26-21 lead with 2:27 left in the half. The Mustangs nursed that lead to halftime, leading 30-29.

“I think we got out of our tempo a little bit (in the second quarter),” Dowd said. “We let the game get a little ragged and that’s what (the Mustangs) like.”

Capuchino didn’t let the halftime break slow it down as the Mustangs opened the third with a 7-3 lead run to push their lead to 37-33. Caruso nailed his fourth 3 of the game to open the second half and when Nikos Gamble connected on a fastbreak layup, the Mustangs had their largest lead of the game.

Caruso would lead Capuchino with 21 points.

But the Panthers clawed their way back into the game and when Lou Martineau scored with 2:19 left in the third, the game was tied at 41.

Then Richardson took over. He drilled a 3 with the shot clock winding down, throwing up deuces to the Burlingame student section as Burlingame took the lead for good, 44-42.

But Richardson was just warming up. He followed that with a driving baseline layup and then ended the quarter with another 3 to lead 49-42 going into the fourth.

Meanwhile, Capuchino managed just to hit just one free throw over the final 2:09 of the third quarter.

And Richardson wasn’t done. His 3 to open the fourth quarter ignited a 8-0 run — including another bucket off the bounce from Richardson and a three-point play from Uhrich, whose free throw put the Panthers up 57-43 with 4:15 left.

In all, Richardson had his own 11-0 run.

“Sean is so good at the end of the (shot) clock that he gets looks,” Dowd said. “We tell him to go (on the attack) all the time.”

Capuchino managed to connect on 3 of 6 free throws in the fourth, but were still looking for its first basket from the field since Quincy Anabeza connected with 2:31 left in the third.

When Alexander Chan finally broke the drought with a field goal with 1:18 left, it was too little, too late as Burlingame enjoyed a 62-45 lead by that time.

At that point, it was simply a matter of running out the clock.