There are scoring droughts and then there is what happened to the Hancock College team for the first 39 minutes of this game Wednesday night.

There are meltdowns and then there is what happened to West Valley’s squad for about 25 seconds that suddenly let the Bulldogs back in the game.

“Just enough,” West Valley coach Scott Eitelgeorge said to one of his players after his Saratoga-based Vikings (5-5) held off the Bulldogs (3-8) 58-52 in a non-conference game at Hancock College’s Joe White Gymnasium.

Eitelgeorge summed up perfectly what the Vikings had Wednesday night.

With 41 seconds to play Hancock had a measly 40 points, on 13-for-45 shooting from the field. The Bulldogs trailed by 14.

Suddenly they could hardly miss and the Vikings could hardly get the ball up the floor.

Hancock forward Glenn Potts tossed in a three-pointer. The Vikings turned the ball over in the backcourt. Steve Faulkner threw down a dunk to make it 54-45 with 30 seconds to play. The Vikings turned the ball over again.

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Potts, a 6-7 freshman from Melbourne, Australia, was true again with a three-point shot, and suddenly it was 54-48 with 20 seconds to go.

West Valley point guard Chris Goutama missed two foul shots. Scott Dixon made one of two free throws, and then Danny Nugent and Reece Behrens finally salted the game away for the Vikings.

They each made two foul shots in the final seconds. Santa Maria gradute Chris Dugan buried a three-pointer with two seconds left for the last Hancock points, and the final points of the game.

Faulkner was the only Bulldog who shot the ball consistently well in the first half. Potts was the only one who shot it consistently well in the second. They had 14 and 13 points respectively.

“These kids are tired,” Hancock assistant coach Ernie Wheeler said. “This is our fifth game in six nights.

“That’s a lot to ask of junior college kids. We drove up to Hartnell in Salinas last night, played well, lost in the last minute. We’re giving the players four days off. We won’t practice again until Monday.”

Jonathan Ramirez is Hancock’s usual starting point guard. He was not suited up Wednesday night. Neither were teammates Darion Capers or Gabe Barraza.

“We held these guys out for disciplinary reasons,” said Wheeler. “It’s a one-game thing.”

The Bulldogs were 17-for-50 from the field thanks to making four of their last five shots.

“We missed a lot of easy shots tonight,” said Wheeler. “We missed a lot of layups, and we turned the ball over.”

Goutama fed the ball to Nugent almost exclusively whenever the Vikings had the ball the last 15 minutes. Nugent, who wound up with 26 points, had a most uneven scoring evening.

He had four points in the first half, after which West Valley led 26-19. Nugent had all of West Valley points 28-through-40 and 22 of the visitors’ last 26 points.

Isiah Pfizer scored 11 points for West Valley.

Mike Cuttino’s three-pointer gave Hancock its only lead, 5-4, when the game was 3:53 old. Still, West Valley’s shooting most of the way was bad enough that the Bulldogs were within single digits until the Vikings outscored them 8-0 in a 2:22 span to take that 54-40 lead.

“We’re a young team,” Eitelgeorge said afterward. The Vikings have eight freshmen.

“Unfortunately, we’ve seen a few like this. It can be hard for us to close out games. It can be hard for us to take a long road trip to a game, as we did tonight.

“Ugly as this was, we’ll take it,” Eitelgeorge said. “We have to.”

December 04, 2008