Mission Climbs Over Wallenberg in Semi-Finals Thriller

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Mission sophomore Antoine Porter pushing the ball on a transition play. (Photo courtesy of Jessica Lum)

By: Richard Lee

          Inside the realms of Kezar Pavilion one year ago, Mission was able to edge out Wallenberg with a 67-60 victory. This year, these two ball clubs brawled in a rematch that had the Bears emerging out of the gates as victors over the Bulldogs once again in a teeth-rattling 69-66 contest.
Many events occurred during this whole game and there were certainly many factors to how the outcome turned out. However, in a very similar fashion to last year’s game in where Wallenberg threw the ball away 30 times. The 32 turnovers committed by the team in navy colors would lead to Wallenberg’s downfall for the second year.
“A lot of our(Wallenberg) turnovers were forced, I thought that the Mission defense did a really great job against us and I thought that we played extremely hard as well. It was a great high school game because both teams just played gosh darn hard.” said Wallenberg head coach Patrick Mulligan when asked about the struggles in keeping the ball away from the Mission defenders.
           The Bears, as they have proven to be all season, were absolute pests on the defensive end and as their notorious full-court press really disturbed Wallenberg’s offensive possessions.

Mission junior Algeron Malbrough
(Photo courtesy of Jessica Lum)

           “I thought that it(our defense) was a big factor in our(Mission) game because it forced a lot of turnovers which led to a lot of fast breaks. We only won by three so those points we got from our fast break buckets really helped us out.” said sophomore guard Antoine Porter who scored 14 points as he and forward Gione Edwards, who scored 17 points, would be the only two players that recorded double-figures in scoring.
           Statistics aside, the atmosphere of tonight’s ball game was intense to an immense degree. Consistent and efficient shooting would be able to keep the Bulldogs in the game as they would be able to stay close within single-digits throughout the whole way  and really make things interesting in the fourth quarter, when they were able to tie the score on two occasions.

           Aggressive defense and hard contact was made during the last minutes of the final frame as dramatics were really starting to build up. The crowd would soon make their presence known with 1:10 left on the clock, when Mission forward Miles Prescott was called for an offensive foul when attempting to score on a transition play. Both fans and staff of Mission High School Basketball would erupt with anger as play-off pandemonium was starting to be present. The most crucial moment came when Antoine Porter was intentionally fouled with 8.5 seconds left with the scoreboard showing Mission with a 67-66 advantage. Antoine Porter now had the opportunity to push the lead to three and make Wallenberg’s chances of a tie or a go-ahead bucket highly improbable.   The first-year player would show no signs of nerves or anxiety whatsoever as he would be able to calmly go through his free-throw routine and convert on his two attempts. The score would be 69-66 and it would remain so after Wallenberg could not execute an eight-second play for three points to extend the game.

Mission Senior Alec Tatum
 (Photo courtesy of Jessica Lum) 

“I told them to just stay aggressive on offense, continue to play defense, and knock down your free-throws. But Wallenberg played a Hell of a game, they really pushed us and we were lucky to get the win.” said Arnold Zelaya about what he told his players as the game during the final minutes of the game.
“We’ll worry about that(preparing for next season) tomorrow, we’ll lick our wounds tonight and worry about that later.” said Mulligan when asked about how he plans to bounce back up next season.
          I think it’s really hard for the seniors to finish up their season but to their credit, we played out two best games of the year in our last two games. I really felt that they gave a champion’s effort tonight.” Mulligan said with a proud smile on his face when talking about his seniors in particular as the Bulldogs season comes to a halt.

           This semi-finals conquest puts the Mission Bears back in the middle of the brackets as the reigning champions will confront the Washington Eagles in one final clash for the ultimate prize that is currently inside Mission’s trophy case. These two teams have exchanged blowout wins against each other during the regular season.

           It will be a showcase of public school’s most elite forces as Mission(15-1) and Washington(14-2) hold the two best records in all of AAA and will now finally be able to prove which organization is truly the most relentless unit of them all and is in possession of AAA’s  most prestigious award, the championship gold.


Scoring Leaders

Mission
Gione Edwards - 17 points
Antoine Porter - 14 points
Travis Price- Moku - 8 points
Jaleel Stancil - 7 points

Wallenberg
Ronnie Campbell - 19 points
Aaron Brown - 15 points
Andrew Chuong - 13 points
David Li - 13 points