A season that started out hotter than late November’s heat wave for the Mira Costa boys basketball team with a six-game win streak turned as cold as the December deep-freeze currently blanketing the Beach Cities with a 50-43 loss to Torrance Tuesday night.
After his team’s third straight loss, Mustang Coach Jeff Amaral said he told his players to go home and ponder why their season was suddenly going sour after such a great start – and what each and every one of them, including him, could do to reverse their slide.
“I told them I was going to go home and think about what I could do to make the team play better,” he said. “And that I hoped they would do the same.”
With only one player returning from last year’s top seven, this looked like a rebuilding year for Costa even before the season began. But by winning their first four games to grab the title in its own Pac Shores tournament and then two more to make the semifinals of the El Segundo Tournament, the Mustangs raised expectations for a season that suddenly looked very promising indeed.
But they lost their last two games in the El Segundo Tournament to set the stage for this dispiriting loss, to be followed by a very tough game Friday night at Chaminade.
There was at least one bit of good news in the wreckage of this low-scoring, sloppily played game: 6-foot-2 sophomore Bobby Barkley emerged as the Mustang’s second best player behind their 6-foot-4 do-everything senior star Quenton Jackson.
Barkley, who finished with 12 points to support Jackson’s game-high 16 point total, led the Mustang’s third quarter comeback after a nightmare of a first half in which they scored only 14 points, exactly half the 28 points scored by a hard-working, well-coached Torrance team.
Jackson, a ferocious defender who was named to the All-Bay League second team last season, got the comeback started with a steal and full-court drive that cut the lead to 28-16. Levi Griffith, working hard on the boards, hit three out of four foul shots to off-set a three-pointer by Thomas Welsome for Torrance.
A stick back by Nick Rangel cut the lead to 10 at 31-21 and forced Torrance to call a timeout. Jackson hit a 10-foot runner from the right side, Barkley scored on a sweet spin-move drive and Jackson finished the quarter by drilling a long trifecta that pulled Costa within hailing distance at 34-30, setting the stage for a real live ball game to break out in the fourth quarter of what had been a snoozer up to that point.
Barkley hit a left-corner three to cut the lead to 36-33, Jackson drove hard, got fouled and hit two free throws to shave the lead to one at 36-35, and suddenly the Mustang faithful were believing in miracles.
But Barkley came out at the 6:30 mark – “I thought he needed a rest,” Amaral said – and by the time he was rushed back in the lead had ballooned back up to 47-37 and there would be no miracle on Artesia Boulevard on this night.
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