Dos Pueblos Edges Bishop Diego 53-50 at Jim Bashore Holiday Classic

Bishop Diego's Fourth Quarter Rally Falls Short

Grant Hughes finished with 14 points. | Credit: ENTENZA

Bryan Trejo’s heave at the buzzer didn’t connect and the Dos Pueblos High boys’ basketball team escaped with a 53-50 victory over Bishop Diego on day two of the Jim Bashore Holiday Classic at Carpinteria High.

The Chargers led 43-32 going into the fourth quarter, but Bishop Diego wouldn’t quit. The Cardinals fought their way within striking distance in the final moments to no avail.

“I felt in that fourth quarter they started to make their run at us, but our guys settled down and we ran our stuff that we were supposed to,” said Dos Pueblos coach Joe Zamora. “Granted, there were some missed shots and they made some shots coming back. They made that little run, but we talked about in the time-out how we wanted to execute and to dictate the shots that we were going to take.”

Dos Pueblos (3-6) and Bishop Diego (7-4) reached the CIF finals in their respective divisions last season, but lost key contributors from those teams. The matchup on Tuesday was highly competitive as early season growing pains have paid dividends for both teams.

“[Bishop Diego coach] James Coronado and I were talking about it before the game. We both went up in divisions, and we both lost some tremendous pieces to our team,” Zamora said. “To have the schedule that we have and to be able to play against each other this soon knowing that it is a community [game] and people know each other growing up, it’s just nice to play against guys that they’ve known since they were young kids.”

Micah Goss and Grant Hughes finished with 14 points apiece to lead Dos Pueblos offensively as the pair continues to round into form after a slow start to the season.

The game was tight early, as Lui Fernandez knocked down two first quarter three-pointers for Bishop Diego, and a layup by Fernandez cut the Cardinals deficit to 11-10 with under a minute remaining in the first quarter.

A three-pointer by Bishop Diego’s Rylan Bohnett evened the score at 13-13 early in the second quarter as the two teams went back and forth for most of the first half.

The Chargers began to take control midway through the second quarter and closed the first half on a 14-7 run as Hughes dominated with his inside-outside game. Dos Pueblos took a 32-25 lead into halftime.

Hughes suffered an injury in the Capistrano Valley game last week and has been in and out of the lineup, so his effectiveness against Bishop Diego was a big boost for Dos Pueblos.

For the second consecutive game, Dos Pueblos built on its lead in the third quarter. An offensive rebound and put-back by Hughes put Dos Pueblos up 43-30 with under one minute to play in the quarter.

However, Bishop Diego stormed back in the fourth quarter. A Fernandez three-pointer cut the deficit to 43-35, and a layup inside by Isaiah Veal off a nice pass by Trejo brought the Cardinals within 45-39 with 4:30 remaining in the game.

Bishop Diego got a little luck on its ensuing possession as Bohnett banked in a three-pointer from the corner cutting the deficit to 45-42 with four minutes remaining.

A driving layup plus the foul by Justin Stock resulted in a three-point play for Dos Pueblos and temporarily stemmed Bishop Diego’s momentum. But he came back with another three-pointer that he swished through the net from the corner to trim the Chargers’ lead to 48-45.

With just over a minute remaining, Qu’Ran Gossett drove to the rim and dumped the ball off to Veal for a layup, cutting the Bishop Diego deficit 51-50. But a driving layup by Hughes extended the Dos Pueblos lead to 53-50 with just under a minute remaining.

Dos Pueblos came up empty on back-to-back one-and-one opportunities at the free-throw line in the final minute, and Bishop Diego rebounded the ball with 12 seconds remaining, setting the stage for the final sequence.