Summit Shasta boys' basketball team advances into first Central Coast Section championship game

No. 2-seed Summit Shasta (11-2) won its playoff opener Wednesday in the four-team CCS Division IV boys’ basketball tournament, taking down PSAL rival Nueva School 53-51.

“It’s always a battle,” Summit Shasta head coach Jorge Chevez said of the growing competitive rivalries in the PSAL. “You’ve got Pac Bay who’s always got the league championship; they’ve won it for like six straight years. We knew it was always a challenge. Then Nueva came up with the McGraw brothers, and they’re so tough. … It’s great to have that because you get those good, competitive league games to help you grow, especially at a time like this.”

Nueva has graduated one McGraw brother — Kyle, who was a freshman at Caltech this season — while younger brother Connor McGraw has emerged as the Mavericks’ team leader as a junior this season. McGraw went for a game-high 17 points Wednesday, but Nueva simply could not overcome an abysmal start that found its shooters unable to convert a field goal for most of the first quarter.

Summit Shasta jumped out to a 16-3 lead before Nueva hit its first field goal, with McGraw burying a 3-pointer from the corner with seven seconds remaining in the opening period.

The No. 3 Mavericks (7-3) would go on to win each of the final three quarters, and eight different times throughout the second half closed the deficit to a one-score game. But Nueva could never catch Summit Shasta on the scoreboard.

“We really just dig deep, honestly,” Summit Shasta senior Josh Bubaker said. “If they score, we’ve just got to keep playing our game, keeping it poised. … Our defense, even though it’s scattered sometimes, our energy, we just pick it up. We just feed off each other.”

Bubaker was one of three Black Bears to score in double digits, pouring in a team-high 13 points. But it was tenacious first-quarter defense that set the tone, and forced Nueva to take frantic, contested shots. Bubaker tallied three steals in the game, all in the opening period. Nueva committed 19 turnovers in the game, eight coming in the first quarter.

“That’s the way we’ve got to play,” Chevez said. “We’ve got to play hard. We’ve got to just scrap and claw.”

Nueva has had some slow starts this year, but nothing like Wednesday’s, according to head coach Barry Treseler.

But even as the Mavericks started converting at a far better clip, contending with Summit Shasta in the paint proved problematic, especially down the stretch.

“Finishing in the paint has been a problem all year,” Treseler said. “A lot of our guys were coming off the pandemic. We have a few guys that just joined the team. We have a couple guys who missed due to quarantine because they were near someone who had a positive. So, we had a lot of disjointedness in this season, in the short season that it was. So, execution hasn’t been as good as any coach would like, and certainly not this one.”

While Nueva shot just 39.6% from the field throughout, they actually shot lights out between the second and third quarters, converting 14 of 23 shots over that stretch. And even when they started running cold in the fourth quarter, five offensive rebounds over the final eight minutes gave the Mavericks plenty of second chances.

Senior forward Trevor Golob, to go with 11 points, nabbed his only two boards of the game in the fourth quarter, both on the offensive glass. And he finished one to start the period, closing the deficit to 44-42. But from there, the Black Bears continuously managed to put bodies between Nueva rebounders and the hoop.

“When they say physicality ramps up in the playoffs, they’re not lying,” Golob said.

Summit Shasta got a big put-back of its own midway through the fourth quarter. Junior center Lucas Supnet-Lutu had the initial look, grabbing an offensive board but having his shot attempt rim out. But sophomore Tyler Caramanica crashed in to wrestle the rebound and score it to give the Black Bears some breathing room at 51-46.

“He’s our hustle guy,” Chevez said. “He does everything. … And when he’s playing a game like that where he keeps it simple, he’s a tough matchup because he’s athletic, he can handle the ball a little bit, but he crashes so well and he’s got good athleticism, so it’s tough to block out.”

Caramanica — who finished with 10 points — followed with a short floater to up the lead to 53-46. But the Mavericks answered back with 1:29 remaining on a missed 3-point attempt with a long rebound from junior Sajin Patel, who grabbed the ball in the corner, checked his toes behind the arc, and fired home the 3 to make it 53-49.

After Summit Shasta missed two shot attempts at the other end, Nueva ran back down and tried to dial up another corner 3. Senior guard Liam Drew drilled the jumper but settled for a long 2 as had his foot on the arc to close it to 53-51.

Summit Shasta used up all the time it could at the other end but turned the ball over on a shot-clock violation, giving Nueva possession with nine seconds to play. But the Black Bears turned up the frantic defense and the Mavericks never got a shot attempt on their final possession.

“It’s tough,” McGraw said of the elimination loss. “The seniors, I feel for them, they put their heart out there. They’re the heart and soul of the team this year. … We’re going to win it for them next year. It was an emotional game, it was tough. But the teams put it all out there. We could have had it, they could have had it. But that’s just how it goes.”

Summit Shasta now advances to Saturday’s championship game and is set to face the winner of Thursday’s other semifinal between No. 1 Pinewood and No. 4 Crystal Springs Uplands.