As a three-point bomb went swish through the net as time expired in the first half of last Friday’s San Diego Section Division III boys basketball championship game at the University of San Diego’s Jenny Craig Pavilion, the fifth-ranked Bonita Vista Barons looked like a defeated team.
The long-range shot gave third-seeded Madison a 28-22 halftime lead and, by the way the Warhawks were playing, it appeared to be the launching pad for a second-half runaway win.
Bonita Vista shots fell short or passes floated out of bounds. When the Barons did get the ball under the Madison hoop, Warhawk defenders were there to decisively swat it away.
It was a nightmare start for coach Don Dumas’s team that was coming off a magical 62-59 upset of top-ranked Ramona in Tuesday’s division semifinals.
But the Barons did something that might have caught many spectators off guard: they regrouped, made adjustments and dominated a Warhawk team that had dominated them in the first half. Bonita Vista out-scored Madison 22-5 in the third quarter and built momentum from there to score a runaway 59-44 victory.
It is the first CIF championship for the Barons since last winning the Division I title in 1999.
“The second half we got more aggressive on the defensive end and focused on making smarter shots on offense,” Dumas explained.
Atoa Fox led all scorers in the contest with 18 points while teammate Quentin Harrison added 14 points. Both BVHS players made history as the first two Barons to win a section championship in football and basketball in the same scholastic term.
“It feels great,” Harrison gushed. “We worked hard in practice. We worked hard for it. It didn’t come easy, but it feels great.”
Bonita Vista shot just 24 percent from the floor in the first half but made a major turnaround by shooting 60 percent from the floor in the second half while accumulating 37 points.
Madison remained relatively consistent in both halves — shooting 36 percent in the first half and 26 percent in the second half.
The Barons just wanted it more.
“Our practices are hard,” Dumas explained. “The kids leave drained. In a game, we can play 32 minutes of fast-break basketball.”
The game was a low-scoring affair in the opening quarter. Madison (19-13) held a 4-2 lead for five minutes as the teams exchanged scoring chances at opposite ends of the court. The Warhawks opened an 11-8 lead but Bonita Vista (20-12) came back to tie the game, 11-11, by the end of the quarter.
Madison took control in the second quarter, however. When Terrell Carter sank two points with 2:35 to play in the first half, the Warhawks led 23-15.
A bucket and foul shot by BV’s Dylan Decker in the final minute trimmed the score to three points, 25-22, before Madison dropped in a long-range shot at the buzzer to go up by six points, 28-22.
The Warhawk lead vanished rather quickly in the second half. Bonita Vista outscored Madison 16-2 to start the third quarter to build a 38-30 lead.
The Barons led, 44-33, at the end of the third quarter.
The Warhawks showed some life midway through the final quarter by cutting the BV lead to 46-39 with 3:55 to play in the game. But the Barons put their foot back on the gas pedal; this one was not going to get away from them.
Decker sank a pair of free throws to put his team up 48-39 and a jumper by Harrison extended the BV lead to 10 points, 50-40. A slam-dunk by Arthur Anthony made the score 54-42 with 1:50 to play and free throws by Harrison, Fox and Taylor Nelson sealed the win.
The “I believe” chant went up from delirious Baron fans with 19.2 seconds to play.
“We struggled in the first half,” Harrison noted. “We talked about it at halftime. We knew we needed to play better. We shot the lights out and executed.”
“We were down at halftime,” Fox added. “We support each other. We just didn’t want this to be our last game.”
Anthony Mendoza added 11 points while Decker had seven points, Nelson had five points and Anthony had four points.
Fox had four assists and three steals while Harrison had three assists and two blocked shots. The Barons generated 43 rebounds in the game, including 10 by Harrison and seven by Fox. Bonita Vista players also made eight steals.
Carter led Madison with 16 points, seven rebounds and four blocked shots. The Warhawks had six blocks overall and tallied 44 rebounds.
Bonita Vista received the No. 9 seed in the Southern California Division V regional tournament and defeated eighth-seeded Capistrano Valley Christian (22-9) by a score of 59-46 in Wednesday’s opening round.
