Padres stage big comeback, stay unbeaten in WCAL

But, oh how those fundamentals can move mountains. And while Riordan’s fusion of dash and flash continued to pick up speed, Serra (3-0 WCAL, 10-2 overall) countered by executing with simplicity and elegance to ride a brilliant run over the closing five minutes for a 67-64 victory in front of a near-capacity crowd Tuesday night at Morton Family Gymnasium.

“That’s the toughest team we’ve seen all year,” Serra guard Parker McDonald said. “I mean, they’re really good. … They’re going to be really good for the next couple years. But we had to show up. We’re at home. … So we just had to play hard, stay confident and play our game.”

McDonald was the catalyst in the fourth quarter comeback as Serra responded to the 12-point deficit with a 19-2 run. The senior shared the game-high with 19 points, nine of them coming in the final period. Just as important the pair of fourth-quarter assists he dished on consecutive plays — each giving Serra the lead — as the 6-4, third-year varsity playmaker was keen to share the spotlight.

“I love sharing the ball,” McDonald said. “With all the guys, just get them the ball. It’s all good stuff. And anytime the ball goes in the basket, it’s a beautiful thing.”

McDonald — who totaled four assists and two steals throughout — was the answer to Riordan’s dynamic duo of junior guards Bryce Monroe and Jelani Clark. The two shared the game-high with 19 points apiece. And while the Crusaders shot 37.8 percent from the floor throughout, they erupted from a 31-31 tie at halftime by maintaining a 7-for-13 clip in the third quarter.

Riordan was also 7 of 12 from 3-point land. And when senior Justice Turner launched a half-court buzzer-beater to end the third period, giving the Crusaders a 51-44 lead — and sucking the air out of Serra’s home arena in the process — it just didn’t seem like it was destined to be the Padres’ night.

Serra head coach Chuck Rapp refused to accept that fate, though. And his insistence on the straightforward, fundamental approach created a rift of styles between the Padres and Crusaders that ultimately defined the game.

“That’s absolutely what we were trying to do,” Rapp said. “We stuck around. And then we made some plays at the end.”

Rapp credited assistant coach Sean Dugoni with the strategy that changed the tide. Dugoni — who served as the Padres’ interim head coach two seasons ago when Rapp was forced to spend a long recovery from back surgery — strategized that Serra should go to a smaller lineup in the fourth quarter.

“That was huge,” Rapp said. “We just spread the court, hit some 3s and got some stops when we needed to. And that was the difference. The small lineup was really a key there.”One of the biggest additions was in thrusting guard Patrick Simon back into the mix. The 5-8 senior came up huge in small bursts. In the first quarter — after Serra’s 8-0 run to open the game was countered by an 11-3 Riordan run to tie it 11-11— Simon came off the bench to answer with seven points over the next two minutes.

Simon totaled 15 points, including three 3s, the last of which he knocked down with 2:51 remaining to cut Riordan’s lead to 58-55. Next time down the court, the senior kicked an assist pass out to 5-11 junior Antonio Abeyta, who knocked down a 3 to tie it.

Then after Riordan committed its third turnover in four possessions, McDonald maneuvered into a 3-2 mismatch in the post to bend a pass around a defender to Simon, who put in a go-ahead bucket, giving the Padres their first lead since the opening minute of the second half.

“We didn’t want them to speed us up because that’s how they want you to play,” McDonald said. “They speed you up and speed you up. But coach just told us to slow it down, stick to our game. Don’t let their tempo dictate our tempo, and that’s what we tried to do. And it worked out tonight.”

Riordan refused to slow it down, even with the previous lead, and was pressing hard. The Crusaders’ only bucket as the lead was changing hands came on the next series, with Monroe scoring on an athletic dribble-drive play to tie it 60-60. The Padres took the lead right back on another McDonald assist, though, this time with the senior kicking to 6-4 senior Cooper Fitz for a go-ahead lay-in.

“I don’t think it was the game went too fast,” Riordan head coach Joe Curtin said. “We play fast. I think it was we were out of control. We were in a hurry and that really cost us the game.”

The Crusaders (2-1, 9-4) cut it to 65-64 with 12 seconds to play on consecutive buckets by Clark. Sandwiched between those two scores, McDonald went to the free-throw line for a 1-and-1 and missed the first, giving Riordan hope. After Clark’s second shot, McDonald got a reprieve from the stripe, hitting both sides of a 1-and-1 with eight seconds left to all but seal the win.

“Parker made some big plays and really stepped up,” Rapp said. “I was really proud of him. He did everything but sell popcorn and sweep the court.”

Despite the Crusaders’ 58.3-percent clip shooting 3s — led by senior Chimae Ugbaja, who knocked down four 3s to total 12 points — they stopping looking from downtown after their first made shot of the fourth quarter to up the lead to 54-44. Riordan didn’t attempt another 3 the rest of the night.

“We still had it, we just didn’t do it,” Curtin said. “And that was the big difference.”

Still, Curtin’s team is positioned to be the best Riordan squad in over a decade. In opening WCAL play with convincing wins over St. Francis 69-39 and at Valley Christian 72-46, the Crusaders jumped out to a 2-0 league record for the first time since 2006-07, when Rich Forslund was head coach.

That was the year before Curtin arrived at Riordan. He joined the varsity staff as an assistant coach under Rich Buckner in 2007-08, then moved to junior-varsity head coach in 2010-11. He took over the varsity Crusaders last season. The program comes full circle with Forslund — who served as head coach at Half Moon Bay for seven years prior to assisting at Palo Alto last season — returning to Riordan as an assistant coach this season.

“It’s the best team we’ve had in a while,” Curtin said. “But this is the WCAL. All that means now is you’re probably going to get other teams’ best shots. We saw that tonight.”

Serra shot 50 percent (29 of 58) from the field throughout. Cade Rees, a 6-7 senior, added 10 points and a game-high nine rebounds.