Summit Shasta boys' basketball team still rolling after last season's Central Coast Section title

Wednesday night’s 62-52 win at Oceana turned into something of a battle royale, defined by flurries of transitions, consistent loose ball scrums, and bodies flying everywhere. Fortunately for the Black Bears, that’s just the way they like to play.

“It’s the way we’ve got to play,” Summit Shasta head coach Jorge Chevez said. “We don’t have any height so we’ve got to spread you out and kind of shoot the ball and, luckily, we have some shooters that can really shoot it.”

Those shooters came up clutch in the third quarter as Summit Shasta went on a 14-0 run to take control of the game. Oceana was playing from behind all night but had closed deficits of 12-4 and 21-14 in the first half, before drawing to within a point at 30-29 midway through the third quarter.

“We’re definitely one of the best 3-point shooting teams in this area,” Summit Shasta senior guard Brian Bodestyne said.

The Black Bears (3-0) responded with a flurry of 3-pointers, including back-to-back long perimeter 3s by Bodestyne and a corner splash from junior Owen Soy to close out the run. And this time, the 44-29 lead held up with Oceana (3-3) closing it to no closer than a three-possession game from there.

“We knew we were going to be in a fight,” Oceana head coach Dan Johnston said. “It was going to be a heavy guard game and so we expected that. Shasta is a good team. They can shoot the lights out. I told my team don’t leave their shooters, and a couple times there were loose balls, we were scrambling, and we just left their shooters wide open.”

Bodestyne, who tallied a game-high 16 points, said it doesn’t matter how far back of the 3-point arc he is — and he was well behind it for both his third-quarter 3s — all he looks for is a little daylight.

“I don’t really think about how far I am from the hoop,” Bodestyne said. “If I’m open, I’ll shoot it.”

Summit Shasta had to overcome the dominant post presence of Oceana senior Dylan Sanford. A transfer from Riordan, Sanford is in his second year with the Sharks. And he’s off to quite a nice start this season.

The long, lanky and emotional senior recorded a double-double Wednesday with 15 points and 12 rebounds and added three blocked shots. This comes on the heels of Monday’s 65-48 win over Burton-SF when Sanford scored 29 points.

“He’s the foundation of our program,” Johnston said. “He’s a great player, he gives it all he’s got. He left it all out there.”

Summit Shasta merely proved too aggressive, and too diverse in its scoring output. Four Black Bears scored in double figures, with senior Xavier Margate netting 14 points, senior Darren Macario totaling 11 and Soy scoring 10. Senior guard Lucas Velsaco added nine points.

Even though 62 points is a really good team total, it’s the lowest for the Black Bears this season. In their first two wins of the year, they downed El Camino 71-68 and then South City 78-50.

“Senior laden groups, they do a great job of sharing the ball,” Chevez said. “Tonight, we didn’t shoot it well but that OK, because we always hang on our defense. It’s always a thing we know that can be really, really good for us.”

Margate was the catalyst in the first half. The senior dropped two early 3s to build a 12-4 lead. Oceana responded with an 8-0 run, capped by a 3-pointer from Cole Dalton to tie it 12-12. But the Black Bears fired right back on a gritty steal and score by Margate, who also broke a 14-14 tie with gliding underhand layup. Summit Shasta would keep the lead for the rest of the night.

Margate scored eight points in the second quarter, and all 14 of his points came in the first half.

But Oceana kept it close going into halftime, closing it to 26-24 when James Buenaventura scored off an offensive rebound. Buenaventura scored eight points, all in the second quarter. Last week in a 61-22 blowout of Lycee Francais-SF, the sophomore scored 28 points.

Once Bodestyne got Summit Shasta rolling in the second half, however, Oceana could not keep pace. Bodestyne was held scoreless in the first half. All his game-high 16 points came in the second half.

“We’ve been blessed in the first three games to put together some runs like that,” Chevez said. “Any short spurt for us really helps us, but 14-0, that’s pretty good. … And it kind of fuels us to get going — just fuels our defense. You pick up energy from stuff like that and, yeah, I’m really proud of them.”