Terra Nova boys’ basketball battles past South City, into 3rd place in PAL North

But it was Terra Nova (5-3 PAL North, 11-9 overall) that got its juices flowing first, and despite shooting just 30.9% from the field, took down South City on its home court 49-40 for the crucial victory. The third-place Tigers are now looking up at two teams in the standings, first-place Half Moon Bay and second-place Jefferson, the latter of which they play Friday.

“It was real important,” Terra Nova head coach Robby Wierzba said. “This puts us ahead of South City. This puts us right in contention to play for second place on Friday against Jefferson. It means a lot. And, you know, anything can happen. We’re hoping for a couple people to knock off Half Moon Bay. We’re praying two people knock ’em off because we’re going to go get them the last game of the year.”

Terra Nova forward Dominic Tuiasosopo hit the biggest shot of the night when he drained a 3 with 20 seconds remaining to give the Tigers a 47-40 advantage. The senior, like every shooter in the game, struggled with his shots throughout. But he still finished with a double-double, totaling 16 points and 14 rebounds, including the dagger 3 in the closing seconds.

“I’ve just been working at practice, trying to get my shots up,” Tuiasosopo said. “Coach has been telling me to shoot more; I’ve been trying to shoot more.”

And he certainly has his coach’s approval to shoot the long J.

“I love him going to the hoop, but I have confidence in whatever he wants to do,” Robby Wierzba said. “I trust him as a player and if 3 is what’s open, then he can take it.”

It was slow goings on the scoreboard in the game’s opening minutes.

South City (5-4, 11-8) scored the first point of the night on a free throw two minutes into game. There was 4:45 remaining in the first quarter when South City’s Jayden Rodrigues scored a transition layup for the game’s first field goal. Terra Nova then scored its first points on the following possession on a post-up bank shot by senior Gio Thompson.

The lead changed hands six times in the first half. But Terra Nova’s outside shooters started putting their stamp on the game. Junior guard Dylan Uter drilled a corner 3 at the first-quarter buzzer to put the Tigers up 12-9. Then at the halftime buzzer, Thomson connected for a corner 3 to send Terra Nova into the locker room up 23-18.

And the trend continued into the second half with Terra Nova, any time South City would score to seem to get back into the game, would answer quickly and authoritatively.

“That’s the good thing about Terra Nova,” South City head coach Isaiah Igafo said. “They have Tui and Gio, which we knew are good scorers, dynamic scorers. But their big man [senior center Miguel Valdes] just seals that post up. … It makes us draw a lot of attention inside. And knowing they have deadly shooters like Gio and Tui outside, it really hurts us and stretches our defense a little thinner.”

The Warriors led just twice in the second half, taking a brief 26-25 advantage off a turnover with a transition layup by junior Nolan Alimorong. But Terra Nova fired right back with a 3-pointer from junior Anthony Wierzba.

In the fourth quarter, South City finally got cooking from 3-point territory, hitting 4 of 6 shots from behind the arc. And when senior Maximiliano Lara Perez knocked down his second straight 3 — en route to scoring a team-high 14 points — to tie it at 34-34, the Warriors were whooping it up and feeling pretty good about themselves. A little too good, as it turned out, according to Lara Perez.

“I feel like we just gained too much confidence,” Lara Perez said. “We felt like we were but (there were) too many turnovers. … Easy ones. We just gave it up, like our coach said. We just gave up that game. Not the outcome we wanted.”

Sure enough, Terra Nova took the lead right back on a short fading jumper by sophomore Jermaine Camasura. South City took the lead on the following series with a perimeter 3 from Rodrigues. But the Tigers countered with a clutch 3 from Camasura to take the lead back 39-37.

“The fourth quarter, we knew we had to step up because the energy was sloppy in the first half,” Tuiasosopo said. “We tried picking it up after that.”

The Warriors took care of the ball well through the first three quarters. They totaled 14 turnovers throughout. Six of those, however, came during a sloppy fourth quarter.

More to the point, South City couldn’t score from the short range down the stretch. The Warriors shot 4 of 12 from the field in the final period, with all four made shots being 3s. South City shot an abysmal 25.9% from the field throughout.

“We’re not really known as an outside shooting team,” Igafo said. “We’re more an inside out. But when we’re playing against a zone, especially a zone like Terra Nova, that’s something we had to do.”

Still, being relegated to fourth place has a silver lining for the Warriors.

“For South City being bottom two for the past six, seven years, for us being able to be in that fight for top three, top four, it says a lot for us,” Igafo said. “It’s big for our program, big for our program.”

Terra Nova’s strong finish was something the team has learned from the school of hard knocks, according to the team’s first-year head coach.

“We lost a bunch of these close ones early on,” Robby Wierzba said. “I think we took those as lessons and now we’re finding a way to win these close ones.”