Capital Christian's Season Ends with Heartbreaker

For 28 seconds, Saturday's game could have gone either way.

's boys basketball team trailed Branson High School from the opening minutes on, but tied it up at 42 at the tail end of the fourth quarter. The visiting Bulls then quickly sank a basket, and the Cougars missed a free throw and rebound opportunity that followed.

The Cougars were eliminated from the CIF Nor Cal playoffs in Saturday's quarterfinal game, 44-42.

"We just couldn't buy a shot," Coach Terry Battenberg said. "Six points in the first quarter–that's not us."

He said he hopes the game will motivate the team to practice hard and get "50,000 shots in over the summer."

The loss was a tough cap to a rocket ride of a season, which saw the boys team and finish with a 26-6 record.

"That was our goal," Battenberg said of the section title. "All this has been gravy on top of that."

The season was the best finish for the Cougars in the eight or so years they've been a part of the Sac-Joaquin Section, Athletic Director Suzanne Baker said.

"It's fantastic that we both made it to Nor Cal and both did well with relatively young teams," Baker said Saturday.

The Capital Christian girls were eliminated from the first round of Nor Cal playoffs by Hamilton High School on Wednesday.

Baker said she was glad the boys team's , Matt Donlan and Tanner Nissen, were able to be a part of this year's section title, after .

"For them to come back and win a section title–it was almost like they were doing it for the previous year's seniors," she said.