Survive and advance.
As he prepares for the Division III boys basketball quarterfinals following his ninth straight win Friday,
Feb. 19, at Chino Valley High School, Mingus Union High School head coach Dave Beery understands that.
Gerardo Angulo and Ashton Loring each scored 21 points, while fellow senior Fabian Navarro added 18 as the Marauders held on to defeat Holbrook High School, 92-89.
“We didn’t handle the last five minutes very well,” said Beery, whose team will travel Thursday, Feb. 25, to a far bigger venue, Gila River Arena in Glendale, for its 9 a.m. quarterfinal, a rematch with Winslow High School. “I do think the crowd got to us.”
Two unforced turnovers combined with three-point shots on three straight possessions by the Roadrunners closed the gap to a one-possession game with less than two minutes to play.
“We had a chance to close the door, but they torched us, [and] a couple of our guys got panicky,” Beery said. “Neither team had time outs, so it got kind of hectic at the end. We have to be a little better under pressure.”
Loring and junior forward Miles Tapija, who finished with 14, finally were able to close the door on Holbrook, converting 13 of 14 fourth-quarter free throws.
“The two things that helped us out were our big guys, Miles and Gerardo,” Beery said. “It was just such a fast, intense game.”
Although Beery is a die-hard coach of man-to-man defense, he has been “kind of rolling with zone” after a 1-2-2 helped hold the Roadrunners in check.
“We weren’t very effective man-to-man,” he said. “We didn’t move our feet very well. They shot the ball pretty well against us.”
Another difference was made, at least psychologically, by the return of senior guard Evan Snyder, whom Beery had written off last week for the remainder of the season after a multiple jaw fracture in practice.
“He’s not who he was before, obviously,” Beery said of Snyder, who picked up a couple of rebounds and fouls in limited first-half minutes. “I really didn’t want to play him against Holbrook, but he had three good practices and didn’t hurt us on the floor.”
