Lucky Teeguarden tied his season high with 25 points Friday night and spearheaded a late SBCC men’s basketball rally that came within inches or producing a victory in the championship semifinal of the 37th annual SBCC Classic. Barstow survived a 14-foot bank shot by David Lane and a tip try by Chris Vines to post a 68-67 victory in the Sports Pavilion.
Barstow (5-3) will take on Oxnard in Saturday’s championship at 7 p.m. Oxnard beat Victor Valley 66-57 in Friday’s late game. The Vaqueros (4-7) will meet Victor Valley for third place at 5 p.m., following the consolation final between Cypress and L.A. Valley at 3.
In consolation action, Valley downed Hancock 77-72 and Cypress eliminated Vandenberg AFB 92-78.
After trailing by as many as 12 points, the Vaqueros closed with a 10-2 run fueled by a pair of 3-pointers from Teeguarden, who scored 15 points and hit 3-6 treys in the second half. He nailed a triple with 27.1 seconds left and Vines made a follow shot to pull the home team within one, 68-67, with 10 seconds remaining.
Martez Walker, who led Barstow with 19 points, missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with 9.2 ticks left and Daniel Koches grabbed the rebound. Lane’s shot from the right side caromed off the backboard and rim.
SBCC fell behind 9-0 at the outset and trailed by 15 before cutting the deficit to 11 at intermission, 38-27. Martez had 16 first-half points and the Vikings took advantage of 14 Vaquero turnovers to score 14 points.
“In the second half, we definitely improved defensively,” said Teeguarden. “In the first half, we had too many turnovers and too many letdowns on defense.
“We missed a couple shots at the end and we were thinking about the 14 first-half turnovers and some missed free throws. We just have to clean it up and play two halves.”
David Lane, the Vaquero scoring leader, had nine points and eight assists but only made 3-14 shots. Koches had nine points and seven boards and Willie Reese collected nine points and six rebounds.
Barstow won the shooting battle 50-33 percent but SBCC remained in striking range by forcing 18 second-half turnovers.
“We had too many unforced turnovers in the first half,” said coach Morris Hodges. “We didn’t block out and they got 11 offensive rebounds in the first half. In spite of that, we were still in contact but we kind of dug a hole for ourselves.
“On the positive side, I thought our kids really competed defensively and battled in the second half. We made enough plays and gave ourselves a chance to win.”
