Santa Maria boys basketball players couldn\u2019t hold back their emotions.<\/p>\n
The team started celebrating with their family and friends while the final buzzer still echoed throughout Wilson Gymnasium.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is something I\u2019ve always wanted to feel ever since I started playing basketball,\u201d Jordan Medina said.<\/p>\n
The Saints\u2019 103-75 win over California City to reach the CIF-Central Division 5 championship game wasn\u2019t just any win. It signified redemption.<\/p>\n
Santa Maria lost the same semifinal game last year to Strathmore High School.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just excited for these boys,\u201d Saints coach Johnny Rodriguez said. \u201cYou can see we really developed a family here.\u201d<\/p>\n
California City won the High Desert League and was led by juniors Cassius Brown and Avery Spears.<\/p>\n
But after Spears left the game early in the first quarter with a serious ankle sprain, the Saints took advantage.<\/p>\n
Senior Jordan Medina scored 12 out of his team\u2019s first 13 points. By the time his twin brother, Julius found his touch from behind the arc, Santa Maria already had a double-digit lead by the end of the first quarter.<\/p>\n
The Saints continued their hot shooting, especially from behind the 3-point line.<\/p>\n
Led by the Medina brothers and a few shots by Gio Silvas and Daveyon Tyler, the Saints made nine first half 3-pointers and the lead never dropped below 15 points.<\/p>\n
California City coach Shawn Corley just shook his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are probably one of the best shooting teams we have seen,\u201d Corley said,<\/p>\n
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Defensively, the Ravens, now without Spears, who averages 17.8 points and 12 rebounds, couldn\u2019t find their bearings and struggled to keep pace. Santa Maria entered halftime with a 54-31 advantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was our energy,\u201d senior forward Gio Silvas said. \u201cWe stayed together the whole time and we didn\u2019t let up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodriguez didn\u2019t want to bring up any past games this week. The returning players already knew what how heartbreaking last year\u2019s semifinal loss was.<\/p>\n
Instead they focused on how this season was already different than in years past.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is our team,\u201d said senior Julius Medina who finished with a team-high 31 points, 10 rebounds and five steals. \u201cWe practice hard as a family, we play hard as a family and we give it all we got.\u201d<\/p>\n
Santa Maria increased its lead up to as many as 29 points in the fourth quarter but the Ravens started to put together a run.<\/p>\n
After a quick timeout, the Saints got right back on track and the 3-pointers continued.<\/p>\n
Jodan Medina finished with 22 points and six rebounds, while Silvas finished with 18 points and six rebounds.<\/p>\n
Jon Kennedy\u2019s 3-pointer in the final two minutes put Santa Maria over the century mark and was the final dagger.<\/p>\n
The Saints were headed to Fresno to face Coalinga next Saturday.<\/p>\n
The last time the Santa Maria boys basketball team won a CIF championship came in 1966, when Steve Patterson led the Saints over Antelope Valley High School in a 68-65 win to claim the CIF-Southern Section \u201cAA\u201d championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not over,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cBut Thursday was a great step forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Santa Maria boys basketball players couldn\u2019t hold back their emotions. The team started celebrating with their family and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[2454,112,114,113,895],"class_list":["post-187016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-basketball","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-men"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}