Mustang Boys to Play for MCAL Basketball Title Saturday Night

knew going into Thursday’s Marin County Athletic League boys basketball semifinal game that its opponent, San Rafael, would be in full charge of the game’s pace.

The first quarter proved it as the favored Mustangs, top seeds in the MCAL tournament, struggled to a 10-8 lead heading into the second quarter in the Redwood High gym.

“When you’re going to play San Rafael, they’re going to dictate the tempo … You just don’t have a choice,” said San Marin coach Craig Pitti. “They’re going to be up in your grill all night, getting very physical.”

After misfiring on a bunch of passes out of the gate, San Marin calmed down and rolled to a 24-8 second-quarter run and hit cruise control in a 50-32 victory.

For the second consecutive game, San Marin didn’t play quite up to its eye-opening, holy-cow standard that it set during this incredible 24-4 season. But Thursday’s victory put the Mustangs in the game they’d targeted all year long: The Marin County Athletic League championship game. They’ll play the winner of Friday’s other semifinal between Marin Catholic and Drake. The title game will be at 7:30 p.m. at Redwood High.

But even though San Marin’s Stuart Wesonga was held to 14 points, or seven below his league-leading average, the Bulldogs (19-10) couldn’t hold the rest of the Mustangs during the decisive second-quarter run. San Marin capitalized on steals, fastbreaks, layups, a 3-pointer here and there and a couple of Wesonga dunks to put the game away early.

“We finally started breaking their press and trap like we did in practice,” Pitti said. “The first quarter was very frustrating. We had about five passes sail four of five feet over our guys’ heads. I don’t know if we were antsy or hyped or what, but in the second quarter we slipped their traps and did it the way we designed in practice. When you do that, you’re going to get some 2-on-1s and take advantage.”

Thanks to a couple of steals and fastbreaks, John Seavey had seven of his 13 points in the second quarter. Chris Glennon, who had kept San Marin in the game during the ugly first quarter with seven points, pitched in six more during the second-quarter spurt. Pitti credited Dominic Coyne and Alex Triantafyllos with strong games off the bench.

San Marin led by as much as 24 points in the second half as Bulldogs’ Parker Shaw, Diego Camarillo and Bobby Conner got in foul trouble. Triantafyllos and Jimmy Burrows played tough interior defense and point guard Ryan Zirkle helped San Marin take better care of the ball in the fourth quarter.

The San Rafael defense did a job on Wesonga, but the 6-foot-7 center — bound for Cal State Northridge on a scholarship next fall —  still managed 14 rebounds and eight blocked shots.

“When I took Stuart out with three minutes left in the fourth, (the Bulldogs) only had 25 points,” Pitti said. “That’s the thing: When he controls the paint, you become a perimeter team and you have to have a great shooting game to beat us. So it doesn’t matter that he only had 14 points. We’re not just a Stuart-oriented team on offense. We have guys like Chris and John, and our bench gets overlooked.”

Glennon matched Wesonga with 14 points.

Based on its strong overall record, San Rafael is still in the hunt for a bid to the North Coast Section Division III tournament. The team will find out its fate Sunday morning when the NCS tournament brackets are filled out. There’s an outside chance the two teams from Thursday night could meet up again.

San Marin is 4-0 against the two other semifinal teams. The Mustangs beat Marin Catholic 59-44 and 63-54, and beat Drake 63-45 and 73-70 in a wild game 10 days ago.

Conner had 12 points for the Bulldogs, but none of his teammates had more than five. San Rafael was missing Sam Brown, a 6-foot-4 power forward who was averaging about 13 points; he was out ill.