SAN RAMON — It took a little bit of everything for Dougherty Valley to survive Wednesday night — a hot start by prolific scorer Ryan Beasley and an unsung player rising up in the second half, plus a reversed call in the heat of the fourth quarter and one enormous stop in the waning seconds.
After all that, the top-seeded home team could finally exhale.
Somehow, someway Dougherty Valley pushed the right buttons to beat Granada for the third time this season, edging the fourth-seeded Matadors 64-60 to advance to the North Coast Section Open Division championship game for the first time in the three-season existence of the elite bracket.
Dougherty Valley dusted off one East Bay Athletic League rival Wednesday.
Friday night, the Wildcats (26-3) will try to do the same to another as they play second-seeded De La Salle at Saint Mary’s College.
When De La Salle visited Dougherty Valley during league play, the home team broke open a tight game in the fourth period to win 69-55.
De La Salle advanced Wednesday with a win over Salesian.
“It should be a good one,” Dougherty Valley coach Mike Hansen said. “The EBAL has been the best all year. So that’s how it should be.”
As it was in the EBAL tournament final 11 days earlier, little separated Dougherty Valley and Granada in the section semifinals.
The USF-bound Beasley got off to a torrid start, scoring 17 of his 30 points in the first quarter. But the shifty guard essentially matched baskets with Granada’s dynamic duo of 7-footer Andrew McKeever and 6-7 wing Tyler Harris. They combined for all 18 of the visitor’s points in an opening period that ended with Dougherty Valley in front 22-18.
Harris finished with 21 points. McKeever had 20.
Tied 30-30 at halftime, Dougherty Valley found a hot hand in the third quarter as 6-3 junior Aadi Malali — an unsung hero — buried three corner 3-pointers. He scored 11 of his 13 points in the period.
“The first half my shots weren’t falling that well,” Malali said. “But I got my confidence back and started hitting the shots which I normally hit at practice. It’s just a normal shot.”
Even with Malali’s deep shots, Dougherty Valley couldn’t shake Granada.
The Matadors (22-9) went ahead 56-53 with 4:40 left on the last of Nate Keaney’s three 3-pointers. He finished with 13 points.
After Beasley’s two free throws cut the margin to 56-55 with 4:21 to play, the guard made a steal at the other end and drove to the basket.
The ball was knocked loose before Beasley could shoot and ruled to have last touched the Dougherty Valley star before going out of bounds.
Beasley pleaded his case that the ball didn’t touch him, and the official who made the call huddled with another official in the three-man crew.
When they broke the huddle, the officials awarded the ball to Dougherty Valley, causing Granada’s contingent of fans in the sold-out gymnasium to blow their top.
Their anger intensified when Dougherty Valley’s inbounds pass went to Connor Sevilla in the corner and the senior buried a 3-pointer to give the home team the lead for good. Sevilla had 15 points.
“It was huge,” said Granada coach Quaran Johnson, who received a bench warning for questioning the reversed call.
But even after all that, Dougherty Valley didn’t put away the visitors until Blake Hudson tied up McKeever in the low block for a jump ball with 6.8 seconds left.
“I brought the ball down,” McKeever said. “I should have kept it up. Bad call, good call, it don’t matter. We had chances.”
A McKeever basket would have tied the score 62-62.
Instead, with the possession arrow favoring the home team, Dougherty Valley got the ball into the hands of its best foul shooter, Beasley, and he made two with 4.7 seconds left to ice the victory.
What did it take this time?
“To be honest, it’s just grit,” Beasley said. “We’ve got a lot of senior leadership. We knew it was going to be a close game with an EBAL team, especially Granada. We knew it was going to be a close game, but we’ve got closers on our team.
“We closed one out tonight.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com