Palma point guard Chris Benavente dropped a season-high 14
points, Matt Johnson drained three 3-pointers off the bench
— including the equalizer with 2:05 remaining in regulation —
and the Palma Chieftains erased a nine-point deficit in the final
stanza and escaped Hollister with a wild 48-44 overtime victory
over San Benito on Wednesday night.
HOLLISTER
Able to control the tempo for much of the game, the San Benito Haybalers kept Palma’s two leading scorers off their averages Wednesday night in Hollister, and even led by as many as 12 points in the second half and nine in the fourth quarter.
An upset appeared imminent.
“They had us dead to rights,” Chieftain head coach Paul Alioto said.
But as the three-time defending Tri-County Athletic League champions, there’s often a backup plan.
Palma point guard Chris Benavente dropped a season-high 14 points, Matt Johnson drained three 3-pointers off the bench — including the equalizer with 2:05 remaining in regulation — and the Palma Chieftains erased a nine-point deficit in the final stanza and escaped Hollister with a wild 48-44 overtime victory.
It is Palma’s (5-0 TCAL, 13-3) seventh straight victory this season and ninth straight win against San Benito, which falls to 2-2 in the TCAL and 10-6 overall.
“They’re good. They’re really good,” San Benito head coach Tracy Carpenter said. “I was proud of my guys. We played hard, played very well. But it came down to one play and you can pick any one of them.”
After being outscored by a 15-6 margin in the fourth quarter — including a 7-0 start to the period which all but erased San Benito’s nine-point cushion — the Balers missed their last five free throw attempts, stretching from the tail end of the fourth quarter and through the four-minute overtime period. San Benito was just 4 of 12 from the charity stripe in the game.
“That’s not good enough,” Carpenter said.
Tyler Rickard’s spin-around 16-foot jumper beat the shot clock to open the overtime period, supplying the Balers with the early edge. But Benavente responded with four straight points, including a driving lay-up in transition that put Palma ahead 44-42 with 1:52 remaining.
It was the Chieftains’ first lead since late in the first quarter, and they never trailed again in the game.
“We were able to just make enough shots,” Alioto said. “They had some good looks, but shots just didn’t go down for them.
“We just gutted this out.”
Benavente’s go-ahead transition basket, meanwhile, which began after a San Benito missed shot attempt, included a mad scramble for the rebound between Benavente and Rickard, who injured his knee on the play and did not return.
“Pulled it, bopped it, banged it,” Rickard said of his knee after the game. The junior guard, who was noticeably limping afterward, finished with a team-high eight points along with Cooper Sepulveda.
“Good teams are gonna have their (scoring) runs,” he said. “We just couldn’t close it out. We’ll get them next time, though.”
The loss is San Benito’s second straight in TCAL play. The Balers were coming off a 64-53 road defeat at Gilroy in which they built a 25-17 lead at halftime but couldn’t close out the game in the third and fourth quarters.
The Mustangs used a full-court press to claw their way back into the game last Friday, and Palma implemented a similar game plan on Wednesday in order to erase a deficit that lasted almost the entire game.
“The last two days we’ve been working on that,” Carpenter said of the press. “We’ve hopefully cured that and we did a much better job against it (tonight).
“The difference is that we played much better in the second half (against Palma). But we’ve got to find a way to make the plays at the end of the game, whether it be free throws or defense, in order to beat good teams.”
San Benito was making all the plays in the first half. After the Chieftains built an early 12-7 lead following a mid-range jumper from Noah Allen, the Balers closed out the quarter on a 10-0 run, highlighted by a buzzer-beating, 60-foot 3-pointer from Jordan Belton.
The long-distance trey only carried the momentum over into the second quarter, where San Benito’s defense kept them ahead in the game. The Chieftains shot just 2 of 13 in the second quarter, 7 of 24 in the half, while the Balers once again closed out the period on a 7-0 spurt, this time sparked by a Brian Mendoza 3-pointer, to grab a 26-17 halftime lead.
“The second quarter, they just ran all over us,” Alioto said.
“We just couldn’t score … They weren’t falling, but sometimes that’s a credit to the other team and how aggressive they’re playing. They kind of got us out of our rhythm.”
The Balers truly showed their control-the-tempo strategy in the third quarter when they began to protect the basketball and eat up clock, exchanging baskets with Palma along the way. But momentum finally began to change when Palma’s leading scorer in Michael Cahalan (12.56 PPG), whose shot just didn’t seem to fall for most of the night — he had just two points in the first half — swung a three-point play toward the end of the third quarter and helped cut the Balers’ lead to single digits entering the fourth quarter.
Cahalan finished with 10 points on the night.
Benavente’s back-to-back lay-ups and Johnson’s 3-pointer then brought Palma to within two points with 5:52 remaining in the fourth quarter, while Johnson’s second trey some three minutes later knotted the game at 38-all with 2:05 remaining.
“A momentum-shifting 3,” Rickard said of the equalizer.
Although both teams had their chances in the waning minutes of regulation, a game that came down to free throws fared in Palma’s favor — the Chieftains closed out the game 4 of 6 from the line.
“We played with great heart and real intelligence,” Carpenter said. “We’ve improved a lot. We’re coming a long way and it’s very clear that we’re moving in the right direction.
“It’s just too bad we don’t have anything to show for it.”
The Balers will look to move above .500 on Friday night when they will host Alisal (1-2 TCAL, 9-6) at Mattson Gym. Tip-off is 7 p.m.
Said Alioto of the Balers, “They’re much better than their 2-2 league record would indicate.”
Notes:
San Benito shot 18 of 50 from the field, 4 of 12 from the free-throw line … Palma shot 17 of 52 from the field, 10 of 21 from the free-throw line … The Balers committed 12 turnovers, while the Chieftains committed 10.
TEAM 1 2 3 4 OT F
PALM 12 5 8 15 8 48
SANB 17 9 8 6 4 44
Palma (48): C. Plascencia 0-3 2-4 2, C. Benavente 6-15 2-6 14, M. Johnson 3-6 0-0 9, M. Cahalan 2-9 5-9 10, J. Powers 1-1 0-0 2, N. Allen 2-8 0-0 4, J. Regester 1-2 0-0 2, A. Duke 1-6 1-2 3, T. Short 1-2 0-0 2.
Three-point goals: M. Johnson 3, M. Cahalan 1.
San Benito (44): J. Belton 3-6 0-2 7, E. Elayda 2-9 0-0 6, B. Mendoza 1-4 0-0 3, E. Olbring 2-3 0-0 4, T. Rickard 3-7 2-2 8, C. Sepulveda 3-7 2-2 8, K. Vallejo 2-8 0-3 4, D. Wingo 2-5 0-3 4.
Three-point goals: J. Belton 1, E. Elayda 2, B. Mendoza 1.
