Party like it’s 1999: Westmoor boys deliver first outright PAL hoops championship in 25 years

“I’m so happy to be part of this history,” Westmoor senior Matthew Murillo said, “and I just love my team, and I couldn’t do it without them.

The Rams sure had to earn it. Cap jumped out to a 27-21 lead midway through the second quarter, and took a 34-33 advantage into halftime. The Mustangs (4-4, 10-13) never trailed in the third quarter, and prior Murillo hitting a breakaway layup with three seconds remaining in regulation to put Westmoor up by 3, the Rams never led by more than 2 in the fourth.

Westmoor center Danny Ugbaja put his team on his shoulders, blasting through the paint with physical post-ups and strong-man hook shots to total 26 points and nine rebounds, both game-highs.

“I love having a player like Danny,” Murillo said. “Someone that always does the dirty work. ... A Draymond Green-type player. He always goes in the paint, gets the blocks. I love playing with Danny. He’s one of my favorite players that I’ve ever played with of all-time, and I’m just so glad to have him.”

Ugbaja said he was feeding off the crowd, a packed house at Westmoor for Senior Night with an emotional fanbase, and a fantastic cheerleading squad that rocked the house, quite literally, by turning the southwest bleachers into their own personal percussion spectacular with cheers involving intricate arrangements of stomps and claps.

“It’s crazy out here, man,” Ugbaja said. “The fans came out, showed love, they brought the support, they got us going. All the love and support, that fueled us. We wanted to get this one.”

It was Ugbaja who gave the Rams their first lead of the fourth, opening the quarter with an offensive board and put-back off his own miss, getting fouled in the process. The senior knocked down the and-1 to put Westmoor up 54-52. But Cap kept firing back. The Mustangs tied it at 54 on a power layup by junior Dominic Vanden Berghe, and later took the lead 58-56 on a cutting pull-up jumper by senior Xavier Ren.

The Mustangs pushed the lead to 60-59, but Westmoor answered with a post-up bucket by junior forward Geordy Zhao to swing ahead 61-60 with 46 seconds to play.

Cap set up a half-court possession for its final look, and got the ball to its best scorer, senior Isaiah Cruz, who totaled a team-high 17 points on the night. The agile and physical 6-foot guard put the ball to the floor with the shot clock winding down, and tried to power through a lane. But Westmoor’s interior defense ran interference, and Cruz took a haphazard, off-balance shot that fell wide.

“I just rushed it,” Cruz said. “I could have jump-stopped. I traveled but the refs didn’t call it. My mind was going a million miles an hour.”

“I told my guys: ‘Just be physical, be aggressive,’” Westmoor head coach Rhod Banda said. “And if they run a handoff or a screen, I told them: ‘Just hedge. Hedge it, stunt it and, if that ball goes up, everybody has got to crash the boards.’”

Westmoor grabbed the rebound and ran the floor, and took advantage of junior Roman Banda dribbling it past mid-court and finding Murillo all along out front of the break. Murillo took the ball in stride, looked to hesitate for just a moment as if he was going to run out the clock, then powered ahead to lay it in with three seconds to play.

“That last play was the most scariest,” Murillo said. “My heart stopped mid-air. It’s a wide-open layup but it’s the most scariest thing of all time and, when it went it, I was just so happy.”

Westmoor set the tone early with a fast-paced style of play, one that saw both teams struggle to maintain possession. The Rams committed 16 turnovers throughout, including 11 in the first half. Cap countered with 12 turnovers, eight coming the first half.

“That’s something we work on extensively in practice,” Cap head coach George Adkins said. “We’ve done drills where it’s no dribble just to take care of the high pressure. It just happens. Turnovers are a part of the game.”

The Rams led 17-12 at the end of the first quarter, but Cap opened the second with a 6-0 mini-run to swing ahead on a five-foot jumper by Vanden Berghe. After Ugbaja answered with a put-back score to put Westmoor back up 19-18, Cap senior Aris Bordo popped a perimeter 3, and the Mustangs led the remainder of the half.

Cap was 8 of 19 from 3-point territory through the first three quarters, but ran out of gas in the fourth, missing both shots from beyond the arc in the final quarter. Senior forward Dermott Philpott totaled 12 points, converting four 3s on the night.

Westmoor out-rebounded Cap 32-25 throughout.

“We’re big on rebounding, boxing out, find a guy and hit,” Ugbaja said. “And we wanted to come out here and just compete with these guys. These guys played their asses off and I’m proud of them.”

Murillo finished with 16 points and seven rebounds, while Zhao came off the bench for Westmoor to score 10. Vander Berghe poured in 15 points for Cap.

With the win, Westmoor earns an automatic bid to the Central Coast Section playoffs, opening this weekend. Cap finishes with a .500 mark in league play, making the Mustangs eligible to apply for a CCS at-large bid.