Jaiden Sabino and his Woodbridge teammates celebrate Tuesday after winning the PCL tournament.(PHOTOS: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).
Portola’s boys basketball team looked well on its way to capturing the Pacific Coast League tournament championship Tuesday night in the final at Woodbridge.
But Woodbridge caught fire in the fourth quarter and held on for a thrilling 51-50 victory over the Bulldogs to earn the championship and the league’s No. 1 automatic CIF playoff berth.
To see the slide show, click on the first photo:
Portola (22-6) had a 15-game winning streak snapped but is also headed to the CIF playoffs after two seasons missing the post-season tournament. The Bulldogs won seven regular season league games and two others in the tournament.
The Bulldogs had a 10-point lead after three quarters and extended the edge to 13 points on a 3-pointer by Gavin Nguyen early in the final period.
But the Warriors star guard Jaiden Sabino, held to four points in the first half, caught fire scoring 10 points in the final quarter and sinking two 3-pointers to lift the Warriors (19-9) to the win. The senior finished with a game-high 18 points. Sabino missed the regular season game with Portola (which Portola won 50-48) because of a broken hand on his non-shooting hand.
Woodbridge outscored Portola 17-6 in the final quarter.
The warm gymnasium was packed with an equal amount of Portola and Woodbridge fans filling both sides. The fans were vocal from start to finish. Woodbridge students poured out onto the floor to celebrate with the Sabino and his jubliant teammates after the final buzzer.
“I finished it out at the end but I continued to trust in my teammates,” Sabino said. “Everyone did their own part, Portola had a great game plan, they double and triple teamed me. My continued faith in my teammates {contributed] and they kept us in the game the whole way and I was able to finish it out at the end, so that’s how we won.
“Fourth quarter, that’s the time to take over, I was getting my teammates involved in the first, second and third quarters and then the fourth quarter is when I got to take over. It was more me just being aggressive and shots went down. I loved the environment, I live for this, I loved it.
“I give all my glory to God and he puts me in this position and gives me this opportunity to succeed.”
Sabino’s teammates also contributed. Jahan Adloo scored 15 points and Zac Saleh 14 points for the Warriors.
“Down 13, we just had to get stops,” said Woodbridge Coach Steve Scoggin. “At the end of the day, it was all defense, get stops and I knew Jaiden was going to show up at some point. I kept telling him, ‘don’t get frustrated, you’re going to get looks, let the game come to you.’ And that’s what great players do. They show up in the big moment.
“It’s always a big thing, that’s our first goal every year is to win PCL,” Scoggin said. “And the kids stuck with it, the first five games of league without Jaiden we learned a lot. A lot of growth happened, even though we had three losses and it showed tonight.”
Portola was led by Ryan Novack who had 14 points, Max Paulsen who had 10 points, Steve Yang, who scored nine points and Gavin Nguyen who scored eight points.
Portola led 25-22 at halftime and started out fast in the third quarter. After Sabino sank two free throws the Bulldogs went on a 10-0 run to make it 35-24.
But Woodbridge responded late in the game, cutting the lead to 50-48 on Sabino’s 3-point basket with 2:40 left. Sabino’s 3-point basket with 1:57 remaining put the Warriors ahead 51-50.
Portola had a couple chances in the final minute to regain the lead, but came up short and a turnover gave Woodbridge the ball back with 44 seconds.
Woodbridge missed two free throws that could have sealed the win with 1.3 seconds, but Portola’s long pass into the front court went out of bounds, ending the comeback hopes.
“We let that one get away,” said Portola Coach Brian Smith. “Kudos to them for fighting back. We opened up a big lead in the third quarter and should have ended it and executed better down the stretch but we didn’t. It’s their house, their court, their rims, they shot well and Jaiden took over in the fourth quarter like you want a leader to do.
“They got some calls down the stretch that helped them out and we didn’t execute, missed some rebounds. It’s disappointing for our guys, but I told them we aren’t victims, we controlled our own destinty and we should have taken care of some things and we didn’t, got to learn from it and get ready for CIF, which is something I haven’t gotten to say in the last few years, so I’m excited about that.”
Smith’s message to his players:
“We had a great run through the season, it stinks that we lose this one game, but that’s the way the tournament is, it’s just like the Big 10 and the Big 12 and the ACC, so you should have played at a higher level, we didn’t, but we can’t feel sorry for it, we’re playing in the post-season now, which is something we haven’t gotten to do the last few years so let’s build from this.”
Both teams had already qualified for the CIF playoffs going into the game.
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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