SAN FRANCISCO — Two weeks ago, Alhambra didn’t resemble anything close to a section title contender.
The Bulldogs finished the regular season two games under .500 and placed ninth out of 12 teams in the Diablo Athletic League with wins over Miramonte, Berean Christian, Mt. Diablo and Concord – all teams that finished in the bottom third of the DAL.
But something clicked for the Martinez school in the playoffs. Given the No. 2 seed in the North Coast Section Division V bracket, Alhambra rattled off three straight wins to reach the title game.
And on Friday night, they looked every bit of a championship team.
Alhambra pulled off a historic 50-41 win over International-San Francisco at Kezar Pavillion to capture its first NCS basketball title.
It wasn’t pretty, but the Bulldogs hit every big shot to take home the section crown.
“We’ve been working for this forever,” Alhambra starting point guard Samuel Gillaspy said. “We dreamed about this as kids and tonight we made it a reality.”
Senior center Chael Collins had a monster game, scoring a team-high 12 points and grabbing 18 rebounds. Gillaspy finished with 10 points, followed by Jaimison Krause with eight, Jerimy Sullivan with seven and Torrance Avery with five.
“We finally got to put Martinez on the map,” Avery said. “We’ve always been underrated and just the team from Martinez. But now we’re here. We won an NCS championship and we’re coming. There’s no stopping us.”
While many teams were unhappy with this year’s new NCS format that relied heavily on MaxPreps’ computer rankings to place teams in divisions and seed them, Alhambra benefited greatly from dropping down to Division V.
The Bulldogs would have not made the playoffs had they stayed in Division III – Alhambra’s base division. But with the new format, Alhambra dropped to Division V and completed an unlikely run to the championship.
“We control what we can control,” Alhambra coach Chris Petiti said. “It comes down to how you define success. I’ve been telling them all year that we wanna play our best basketball in February, and we can’t control anything else.”
The first half was sloppy for both teams as the two totaled nine turnovers each. Alhambra’s aggressive 2-3 zone forced steals and defelections while International’s 2-2-1 press gave the Bulldogs fits bringing the ball up the court.
Alhambra got a huge momentum boost right before halftime as senior guard Nahom Delelu got a steal and flung a pass to Gillaspy, who finished a wide open layup as the buzzer sounded to give the Bulldogs a 21-16 lead at halftime.
An 8-0 run to open third gave Alhambra a 10-point lead – its biggest of the night – after Krause finished a fastbreak layup off a steal.
But International wasn’t going to go away without a fight.
Midway through the fourth quarter, five quick points from International’s Conor Maguire cut the Alhambra lead to just five points. A few possessions later, senior Will Savill-Welch had a strong drive to the basket and finished at the rim to make the score 45-41 with just over two minutes remaining.
But that’s the last time International would see the ball go through the net.
Alhambra strung together three straight stops and hit five of eight free throws to ice the game.
Alhambra’s defense became suffocating for International in the second half as the Jaguars struggled to find any clean looks. Maguire, who two weeks ago scored 63 points and knocked down a NCS record 14 3-pointers, was held to just 12 points and did not make a shot beyond the arc.
“Our gameplan was just to stop him,” Avery said. “We all know he can put up shots and we stopped him from doing anything.”
As Alhambra hit free throw after free throw late, the reality of the moment started to settle in for the Bulldogs’ senior class. With 20 seconds remaining in the game, Gillaspy put his hands over his head in disbelief that his team was moments away from winning an NCS title.
Alhambra went through multiple losing streaks throughout the season and endured multiple blowout losses in league play. One stretch in January had the Bulldogs losing seven of eight games.
“We went through a hard schedule,” Gillaspy said. “We lost five in a row and some of us were injured. But we stuck through it and we never stopped being competitive.”
While the game was in International’s backyard, it was Alhambra that made it feel like a home game. Alhambra had a large and loud crowd that came out to support the team.
For Petiti, the win was extra special. Petiti, who is in his eighth year as head coach, had his father, Drew Petiti, on the sidelines with him during Friday’s win.
Drew recently retired from coaching after numerous stops in the South Bay and Peninsula. He held coaching jobs at South San Francisco, San Mateo, The King’s Academy and Leland before joining his son’s staff at Alhambra this past summer.
“We wouldn’t be here without him,” Petiti said. “I can’t complain about having a great assistant. It makes tonight special.”
Alhambra will get to celebrate the win, but will look to summon another great playoff run after the Bulldogs know where they will be placed in the NorCal playoffs after Sunday’s CIF seeding meeting.
“We just have to keep believing in each other and be relentless, and we’ll get wins like tonight,” Collins said.”