On Tuesday night, the boys’ basketball team beat the Cupertino Pioneers by a score of 52-35 in the quarterfinals of CCS Division One playoffs.
M-A won the opening tip and senior Jack Anderson quickly got on the board with a layup. After two quick steals for Anderson that both led to dunks, along with a steal and layup by sophomore Jacob Sutton, the Bears got out to an early 10-0 lead and never looked back.
Senior Jonah Missan said, “We made a point to start with a lot of energy and set the tone, we wanted to make it clear that we were there to dominate and not even give them a chance.”
Senior Justin Moore got on the scoresheet with a dunk of his own, and after one more layup from Anderson, the first quarter came to a close with M-A leading 14-2.
The second was not much different on both ends of the floor. It started with a putback from junior Trevor Cadigan, and then two Anderson dunks, one of them being a reverse which put the crowd into a frenzy.
The Pioneers tried to shoot their way back into the game by hitting two three-pointers in the second quarter, but the M-A defense was stellar throughout the game. Senior Jack Kryger said, “Our defensive strategy was to be aggressive and play in passing lanes to make them uncomfortable in their motion offense; that game plan created a lot of steals for us.”
A block by Anderson created a layup for Missan, making the score 26-9 during halftime.
Anderson came into the second half the same way he left off the first, dunking another one home on the first play, and then converting a layup plus the foul to put the Bears up by 20.
It appeared that the Bears’ offensive barrage was too much to handle after a power outage immediately followed a layup by sophomore Jerry Williams. The gym went dark as the score read 35-14, and the game had to stop for about 10 minutes.
Play eventually resumed and the fourth quarter got underway as M-A looked to manage the clock and salt the game away. A three-pointer from Moore and a steal and layup from Anderson brought the M-A lead to 23, but the Pioneers responded with a 7-0 run of their own.
Despite Cupertino not backing down, consecutive-and-ones from Sutton put the final nail in the coffin for the night, and the game ended with the Bears emerging victorious 52-35.
Regarding a strategy for tonight’s semifinal against Palo Alto, Moore said, “We need to better dial into our game plan and stick to it. We just need to play as a team and have fun in our system.”
M-A plays the Palo Alto Vikings tonight at 7 pm to try and book their spot in the championship.
