The Palo Alto High School boys’ basketball team (14-6, 8-1) pulled out a 45-42 nail biter against Cupertino High School (13-7, 5-3) to take a two game lead in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League with three games remaining.
Earlier in the season the Vikings lost at Cupertino 40-45 but redeemed themselves in front of their home crowd.
“Cupertino beat us [Paly] last time,” assistant coach Erik Olah said. “They had two losses in league and if we had lost this game we [Paly] would also have two losses in league. But since we won this game, now we have a two game lead in this division.”
Paly’s leading scorers were sophomore center E.J. Floreal who scored 19 points, followed by junior guard Alec Wong who had 10 points, while senior forwards Charlie Jones and Davante Adams scored five and four points respectively.
Cupertion was led by junior forward Gokul Natesan who had 17 points mainly 3-pointers, followed by senior guard Terry Chu who scored 10 points, Takashi Huynh who scored eight points and senior forward Ryan Prendergast who scored seven points.
“We knew coming in from our first game that we couldn’t really pressure them [Cupertino] because the majority of their player can handle the ball well,” Wong said. “We wanted to contain them and just focus on their shooters.”
The Vikings started slowly and Cupertino raced to an early 16-6 lead in the first quarter.
Paly’s struggles continued in the second quarter. Although Adams was all over the court snatching rebounds, the Vikings struggled to score. Natesan’s disruptive play on the defensive side of the ball never allowed Paly to get into a rhythm. He flew high in the air to reject junior forward Isreal Hakim as he went for the lay-up and then intercepted a pass to thwart another Paly scoring opportunity. With five minutes left in the first half, Paly trailed Cupertino by 10 points and in the last minute, Natesan sank a 3-pointer to put Paly behind, 13-25.
“I think we were still trying to figure out our defense at the first three quarters,” Olah said. “We finally made adjustments during the second half of the game. We got more aggressive and played more man-on-man defense.”
In the third quarter, the Vikings finally got going on offense. Good ball movement and team oriented play was key to the rally. However, Natesan continued to bother Paly on both offense and defense grabbing two steals and a block as well as draining two more shots beyond the arc ending the third quarter 27-36.
Trailing by nine entering the fourth quarter, the Vikings refused to give up and made a strategic switch to paly man-on-man defense to prevent Cupertino from making more 3-pointers. Fueled by the cheers of its home court, Paly didn’t let the crowd down as Adams passed the ball to Floreal, who cut through the defense to a sucessful layup. With only a few minutes left in the game, Paly had cut the deficit to four points. Wong scored a stellar 3-pointer to cut the lead to one, turning up the pressure on both teams. In a stellar play and turning point of the game, Floreal stole the ball and performed a thunderous one-handed dunk on the fast break to tie the game at 42-42. With the crowd on its feet, Floreal scored a jumper to give Paly its first lead of the game. Senior guard Max Schmarzo iced the victory with a foul shot that to end the game at 45-42.
Head coach Adam Sax noted the energy and inspired play of the Vikings was based on how the players reacted and adjusted to the playing style of Cupertino.
“The adjustment was made by all the players,” Sax said. “The players made the plays, they attacked and picked up some offensive rebounds. During the first half we got a bit lazy, and they [Cupertino] got seven three’s. In the second half, they only had one.”
The Vikings staged an incredible rally to score a total of 14 points in the third quarter and 18 points in the last quarter while holding Cupertino under 20 points in the second half. The win all but clinched Paly’s second consecutive SCVAL title and ensured them a good seed for the Central Coast Section playoffs.
Palo Alto’s next game is 7:45 p.m. Feb. 11, against Gunn.