The Paly boys’ basketball team defeated Gunn High School, 45-44, on junior Joseph Lin’s buzzer beater to move into a first-place tie with the Titans in the SCVAL De Anza league on Friday night.
With 7.5 seconds left on the clock, Paly inbounded the ball to Lin, who took the ball up the court and looked to pass the ball to an open teammate. However, with the clock winding down and no one open, Lin had no choice but to take the last shot. With 0.7 seconds left, Lin threw up the game-winning jumper that sent the home crowd into a frenzy.
“It just felt good because we were playing for a lot,” Lin said. “We would have been swept if we lost and we hadn’t lost to them [Gunn] since 2003. I was just happy to see my team happy and happy to see the crowd go crazy.”
The game flowed back and forth throughout the night but Paly held the momentum heading into the second half, leading 20-17.
However, Gunn’s team fought back in the third quarter, using height to its advantage by scoring most of its points on offensive rebounds.
“They [Gunn] just put the ball in the basket every time they got it,” Lin said.
Despite Gunn’s superior play, the Vikings tied it up at the end of the third quarter with sophomore Max Schmarzo’s buzzer beater three pointer.
“We had some good energy and [junior] Brendon [Rider] got me open and it carried over to the fourth,” Schmarzo said.
The fourth quarter was an intense battle between two rivals that could have gone either way. The Titans were leading, 36-35, with only a few minutes to go when sophomore T.J. Braff scored a critical five points in a 30-second span to give the Vikings a 40-36 lead.
“That was big, making that shot when we had to,” Schmarzo said. “It was a critical moment in the game and it turned the momentum towards us.”
However, Gunn was not going to let the Vikings continue their 11-game win streak so easily. The Titans battled back and took the lead with 14 seconds left on a bucket from Gunn’s senior center Gus Brennan.
“We tried to pound it inside and get our rebounds because we knew that our height really gave us an edge,” Gunn’s senior guard and leading scorer Max Minowitz said, “but Paly’s young players played a lot better than we expected. It really takes a lot to be clutch in such a big game.”
Then it was Lin’s time to shine. The rest is history, as Paly defeated its cross-town rival and Lin lived up to his family’s legacy, as buzzer beaters flow through Lin blood.
Paly’s next game is at 7 p.m. on Jan. 27 in Paly’s big gym.