Micah Crawford secured his 18th rebound of the night after Sierra’s Emil Esperanza missed an off-kilter 3-pointer in the final seconds, and visiting Manteca escaped with a 44-41 win Wednesday to remain a game back of Valley Oak League-leading Central Catholic.
Peyton Nieman scored 24 points and drained seven 3s — six of them in the first half — in a rivalry romp in which scoring was sometimes scarce for both teams.
Anthony Grady led Sierra (3-5 VOL, 14-11 overall) with 14 points.
“This is my fifth year at Manteca, I don’t think we’ve won a game by more than four points at Sierra,” Manteca coach Jason Hitt said. “They do a great job, and coach
“We see each other a lot in the summertime, so they obviously adjusted to everything we were doing. We actually called some sets we didn’t show (previously), and it was just poor execution on our part. We looked kind of confused and bewildered out there. You just have to tip your hat to their boys for playing hard on senior night.”
His Buffaloes (7-1, 18-8) struggled to get shots to fall at the outset and in crunch time. They had their largest lead at the end of the third quarter, 40-29, but started the fourth on a 4 ½-minute scoring drought as Sierra scored nine unanswered points.
Manteca was held to just four points in the final period, getting the last of Nieman’s 3s with 3:32 remaining. The Buffs had chances to put the game away at the free-throw line in the final 30 seconds but missed five of six foul shots.
With 7 seconds left, Joshua Seals grabbed a defensive rebound off Johan Peringelil’s missed free throw and hit Esperanza (six points, three assists) with the outlet pass. Esperanza attempted to tie it with a deep 3, double pumping in the air before releasing it as Manteca’s Evani Gaeta (six points, four assists) challenged the shot.
“We know we can compete with them, it’s just an execution thing,” Morales said. “In the first half, we gave their best player wide-open looks. We had to slow him down a little bit, which we did, but at a crucial point he bangs that wide-open 3. There were a lot of mental errors on our part. We don’t care if it was ugly or not, we just wanted to be there in the end.”
Nieman caught fire in the second quarter when he hit five of his 3s. The senior guard accounted for 21 of his team’s 28 points in the first half. The Buffaloes led 28-21 at halftime.
“Honestly, we just had good ball movement and I found my open shots and they started falling,” Nieman said. “They kept on falling, but I didn’t really feel anything (different). It just felt like a normal game to me.”
It was otherwise a tough night of shooting for both teams, making rebounding that much more important. Manteca won that battle 42-30 and held Sierra without an offensive rebound in the first three quarters. Crawford scored five points to go with his whopping 18 boards, while Elijah Nelson had two points, 10 rebounds and three blocks.
Seals led the Timberwolves with 17 rebounds but was limited to five points. Tim Sarginson contributed seven points and five rebounds.
“My teammates were doing a good job of boxing out, and I was able to outwork everybody for the loose balls,” Crawford said. “Rebounds are important, especially defensive rebounds — that’s what our coach says.”
Two games remain in the regular season for both squads. Manteca hosts its other cross-town rival East Union on Friday before traveling to Central Catholic on Feb. 7 for a possible first-place showdown.
Meanwhile, Sierra is deadlocked with Oakdale and Kimball for third place and the final available automatic postseason berth. The Timberwolves head to Oakdale on Friday before closing at East Union.
If Sierra does not finish in third place, it can still earn an at-large bid by finishing in the top 15 of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III MaxPreps computer rankings. The Timberwolves were ranked 13th coming into Wednesday’s game.
“We’ve had so many close games, man,” Morales said. “I want to get my seniors in the playoffs, for sure. If we can put it all together down the road, I think we’re a scary matchup for teams in our division. I have confidence that we’re going to get it done, I just need to do a good job the last four practices and make the most of it.”
Junior varsity
Sierra 30, Manteca 28
A.J. Chapman made the buzzer-beating basket to give Sierra the win.
Riley Kane led the Timberwolves with eight points, and Julian Ruiz had seven. Antonio Fraley and Cooper Chamberlain paced Manteca with nine and eight points, respectively.
Freshman
Sierra 45, Manteca 42 (OT)
The Timberwolves closed the game on an 11-0 run, scoring the final eight in regulation to force overtime.
Isaiah Revives led the Sierra attack with 12 points, including a pair of 3s. Isaac Kempf netted 10 points and 10 rebounds. Karanbir Bhandal contributed nine points, Ryan Alves made two 3s for his six points and Arsh Gosal collected four points, six rebounds and three assists.
Shahab Safi amassed 20 points and made four 3s for Manteca.
