Daily Journal Athletes of the Week: San Mateo’s Zidane Auzarang and Bella Fong

With the Peninsula Athletic League regular season coming to a close last week, both Mateo varsity teams delivered Ocean Division championships. For the girls, it was their second straight PAL crown under second-year head coach Paul Carion, after claiming the PAL Lake championship last year. For the boys, with head coach Marvin Lui in his third year back at the helm, the Bearcats earned their first PAL title since winning the Lake Division in 2011-12.

“I think both teams are very talented,” Carion said. “I know Marvin, Marvin is a great coach. … And I’ll tell you what, I’ve learned a lot just watching his practices. Because he’s just so defensive intensive, it’s really impressive seeing what his team has done on the defensive side of the ball.”

It’s what senior forward Zidane Auzarang and sophomore Bella Fong have done on offense that has helped seal the deal, though. It’s for this reason Auzarang and Fong have been named Daily Journal Athletes of the Week, after leading their teams to the double championship.

Fong scored 11 points in San Mateo’s 56-50 win last Wednesday over Burlingame to clinch the title. The sophomore guard led the girls’ team back from the abyss of a 37-20 third-quarter deficit, and was in the eye of the storm of both the game-tying and go-ahead sequences. It was Fong’s scrappy play as she dove to the floor to recover a loose ball that put a swing pass in motion for senior Yanira Nunez to drill a 3-pointer to tie it 45-all. Then Fong delivered a serious Euro-step through traffic to give the Bearcats the lead.

What sealed Fong’s choice as an Athlete of the Week selection, though, was what she did in last Friday’s regular-season finale. The Bearcats rolled to a 48-30 win over Sequoia to wrap up their second straight undefeated season in league play, but they had to do it without sophomore center Kaitlyn Schuh. So, to make up for the loss of height against a post-intensive Sequoia team, Carion turned to Fong to man the post.

“I usually play where I’m needed,” Fong said. “Mostly the guard position, But I think I was pretty ready to play the post.”

She sure was. Fong stepped up to deliver a double-double with 15 points and 12 rebounds.

“She was a post and that’s the flexibility of her,” Carion said. “Even though she’s a great guard, a great wing, she’s our No. 1 shot put thrower and our No. 1 discus thrower in track. She’s really strong. So, I knew she could handle it.”

Carion has witnessed Fong’s clutch play before. Last year, when the No. 11-seed Bearcats upset No. 6 Santa Clara to advance to the Central Coast Section Division II quarterfinals, it was Fong who delivered two free throws in the closing seconds of overtime to give San Mateo a 51-50 victory. Fong, then a freshman, scored 27 points, 23 after halftime, including all five points the Bearcats scored in OT.

“You talk about putting the team on her back, she did that,” Carion said.

Still, Fong is beholden to last year’s run being a rebuilding year. The future is indeed bright, as Fong is one of seven sophomores on this year’s varsity roster.

“For the girls, last year it was definitely a rebuilding year,” Fong said. “Coach Paul came to San Mateo for his first year and we had a really strong class coming in. … I think playing together last year made us build better bonds and now we play really well together.”

For Auzarang, one of the PAL’s most prolific scorers, last week's must-win games against Terra Nova and Sequoia brought out the best in the sharpshooter. First, in a 64-51 win over Terra Nova, the senior scored 25 points. Then in the PAL Ocean clinching performance, a 49-47 win over Sequoia, he scored 29 points, including an impressive 13-of-17 clip from the free-throw line.

“He’s built for this,” Lui said. “Those types of moments in those types of games ... he’s been working for this probably since I’ve known him.”

Auzarang comes from a long lineage of basketball talent, most recently his uncles, Suhail Mohammadi (Carlmont, class of 2010) and Masie Mohammadi (Serra, class of 2016). Auzarang, though, spent most of his youth sports days on the soccer pitch. It wasn’t until he arrived at San Mateo that he got serious about basketball.

It took Auzarang two years to find his rhythm as a shooter. Lui said he was still the Bearcats’ leading scorer as a sophomore, but that relied on a high-volume shot frequency. It wasn’t until last year that he settled in, and that the then-junior did receive MVP votes in the end-of-year PAL meeting. Since San Mateo finished in fourth place, however, he got overlooked for the award.

“So, he definitely used that as fuel to kind of light his fire,” Lui said.

That fire carried the Bearcats across the finish line last Friday, when Auzarang got to the free-throw line with his team clinging to a two-point lead. The senior hit both free throws, to send the hometown crowd into a frenzy.

“Honestly, when I hit that last free throw, I had a big breath of relief,” Auzarang said.

Seconds later, when Sequoia missed a 3-pointer with the final seconds ticking off the clock, Auzarang turned to his classmates in attendance as they readied to storm the court.

“It was just kind of a surreal moment because it happened so quick,” Auzarang said.

It was a celebration years in the making, one deserving of a fairytale finish.

“It’s rare when it comes down to when the league championship is decided in the last game of the league, so it was intense,” Lui said.