When Redondo‘s best player was fouled while taking a three pointer with seven seconds left and his team trailing its only Bay League challenger by three points, it was a moment tailor-made for individual and team redemption.
Late in the first half Friday night Leland Green had been fouled while taking a 3-pointer, but he only managed to sink one of the three foul shots to put his team ahead of Inglewood 22-18. But it was the way he missed – looking tentative and full of self-doubt, trying to put so much arc on the shot that it went too high and came up too short – that was so strange for the normally cool and confident Green.
“You could see he was really pressing,” Redondo coach Reggie Morris said. Later in the first half Green missed two more foul shots after being fouled on a short jumper.
By the time Green was fouled while attempting a deep corner 3-pointer with seven seconds left, the screaming, delirious crowd had forgotten all about his missing four of five foul shots in the first half. This was a golden opportunity for the Sea Hawks to tie up a game they had trailed for most of the second half and set themselves up to steal a win in overtime. Surely their best player would rise to the occasion.
The super quick and athletic 6-foot-2 Green, however, had apparently not forgotten his first half failures. He again looked lost and doubt-ridden at the foul line, exhibiting none of the positive body language he usually displays.
Sure enough, he clanked the first two shots as the crowd groaned and he only hit the third when it rolled around the rim and in. The Hawks fouled Inglewood’s feisty leader, point guard Terrell Gomez, who calmly sank both foul shots to seal the Sentinels’ 59-55 win.
For Sea Hawk fans, there was only one piece of good news in the wake of the shocking upset: Redondo, which posted a narrow victory at Inglewood several weeks ago, is still in first place in the Bay League at 5-1 because Inglewood, which had a size advantage at every position over the Hawks, somehow managed to find a way to lose to Peninsula and now has a league record of 4-2.
“I don’t know how we lost to Peninsula,” Inglewood Coach Patrick Roy said. “You win some, you lose some.”
Friday night’s loss exposed Redondo’s two glaring weaknesses – a lack of height up and down the roster and the absence of a go-to player at crunch time.
“Inglewood is bigger at every position, stronger and more athletic than us,” Morris said after the game. “And tonight they were a little more physical than us. No team has more physical gifts than them.”
Despite their deficiencies Redondo still has an overall record of 17-4, which has earned them a national ranking of seventh from MaxPreps and a state ranking of third in California.
Their strengths – a core group of five players that have played together for many years, extreme quickness and athleticism up and down the roster, and Morris’ system of full-court pressure on defense and constant ball movement on offense – were enough to propel the Hawks to an early 18-16 first quarter lead when Green put back a short Wesley Gilbert miss at the buzzer. The lead grew to 22-18 when Green hit one of his three foul shots, but Inglewood refused to fold under relentless defensive pressure as Gomez controlled the ball and the pace while the Sentinels fought back to tie the game at 29-29 at halftime.
Gilbert, the 6-foot-8 senior center who transferred in from a Sacramento high school this year, kept them in the game at the start of the third quarter with a stick-back and a short turn-around jumper to tie it at 33-33.
But Inglewood, behind the heady, steady leadership of Gomez, seized control of the game and raced out to a 43-39 lead at the end of the third quarter.
The fourth quarter was fast and furious with both teams pressing on defense and producing more turnovers than a bakery. Inglewood stretched its lead to 48-41 before the smallest Redondo player with the biggest heart, 5-foot-2 point guard Elijah Nesbit, threw in a runner and was fouled, hit the foul shot, and trimmed the lead to 48-44. When sharp-shooter Morgan Means drilled a corner three the lead was down to 50-47.
But Green missed a short jumper, Gilbert missed a stick-back attempt and Gomez came down and stuck a cold-blooded trey to boost the lead back to 53-47. Redondo continued to fight and when 6-foot-5 Cameron Williams – Redondo’s main inside presence – stuck back a Green miss they were barely alive at 57-54 with only 14 seconds left.
All looked lost until Nesbit stole the ball and fed Green deep in the right corner. He was slammed to the floor as he tried a desperation 3, setting the stage for a story-book moment that was not to be.
Nesbit led the Hawks with 14 points and 3 steals, Green had 11 points and Means 10. Gomez finished with 13 points, 6 assists and four rebounds. Chance Hunter led the Sentinels with 15 points.
Despite the loss Morris was hopeful the Sea Hawks would bounce back, win a fourth straight Bay League title and set themselves up for another deep run in the playoffs.
“We have four more league games to go,” he said. “We just have to win out.”
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