When Santa Barbara High’s boys basketball team was placed into the CIF-SS Div. 1 playoff bracket after a 23-5 regular season, it was clear that the Dons would have to topple a powerhouse or two in their quest for a CIF-SS title.
They did just that on Tuesday night in front of a sold-out J.R. Richards Gym, outlasting Mater Dei for a 75-70 win in overtime to punch their ticket to the CIF-SS Semifinals.
“It’s a testament to hard work,” Santa Barbara High head coach Greg Zuffelato said of the team’s playoff run thus far. “These guys, since they were little, whether on their own or with me they just work, work, work for hours and hours.
“I don’t want to be arrogant but when we step on the floor, I know that we put in more time than anyone else we play… that’s how [winning] happens.”
The Dons will make the trip down to Mira Costa, the No. 2 seed in the division, for the CIF-SS Div. 1 Semifinals on Saturday at 7 p.m.
With 40 seconds left in the fourth quarter of Tuesday’s matchup, Luke Zuffelato buried a three-pointer with a defender in his face to cut the Mater Dei lead to 61-60.
Following a timeout, Luke Zuffelato picked off the Mater Dei inbounds play to regain possession. However, the Dons promptly turned the ball right back over to the Monarchs with 18 seconds to go.
Mater Dei’s Demarcus Henry was sent to the free-throw line, where he knocked down both to give his team a 63-60 lead with 12 seconds on the clock.
On the ensuing possession, Santa Barbara’s Cayleb Miller found Diesel Lowe in the corner. Lowe shook his defender with a step to the left and knocked down a game-tying three-pointer with four seconds left in regulation.
“The magic comes from the character of our leaders: Carter (Battle), DJ (Wilson), Luke (Zuffelato). They’re such high quality people,” Greg Zuffelato said. “It looks like luck, but this ain’t luck. This has happened a lot now.
“Diesel hit that huge shot, we’re not here without that shot so that was amazing.”
The Dons picked up a steal on the next Mater Dei possession, but their buzzer-beater attempt rattled out to send the game into overtime tied at 63-63.
The two sides exchanged buckets for the majority of overtime, leaving the game tied at 68-68 with 1:07 left.
After chewing up the majority of the shot clock, Luke Zuffelato found himself with the ball near the top of the key. The UCSB commit took a step back, caught his defender leaning, launched a three-pointer, and banked it in, sending the crowd into a frenzy and putting his team up 71-68.
“Just giving it to God, honestly, same as Sierra Canyon, I just threw it up,” Luke Zuffelato said of his go-ahead three-pointer. “I like the bank I guess, I just trusted myself and my team trusted me to just throw it up there.”
The Dons forced a miss on the next Mater Dei possession, forcing the Monarchs to send Santa Barbara to the free-throw line. Lowe and Miller each went 2-for-2 from the line in the waning seconds of the game to put the finishing touches on the 75-70 overtime win.
“If we can make shots we knew we were going to be in it, and man we made shots,” Greg Zuffelato said. “When it counted and when we were down we made shots over and over and over.
“They are the toughest team, the most disciplined team, and the hardest working team I’ve ever coached. And that plays out when we get into the fourth quarter and into overtime.”
Luke Zuffelato led all scorers with 28 points in the victory while Lowe (14), DJ Wilson (12) and Owen Horn (11) all reached double figures as well.
In the opening quarter of the game, it seemed as if Mater Dei’s size would be an issue for the Dons for the rest of the night.
The Monarchs asserted themselves in the paint early and often, building up an 18-13 lead after the first quarter.
“You kind of knew going in that they’re going to score inside, their bigs are great and long,” Greg Zuffelato said.
After Mater Dei began the second with back-to-back inside buckets to go up 22-13, Greg Zuffelato called a timeout with 5:54 on the clock.
Out of the timeout, Owen Horn knocked down two straight long balls to make it a one-possession game at 22-19 and force a Mater Dei stoppage.
The timeout didn’t cool off the Santa Barbara High shooting attack, however, as Horn, Battle and Wilson all hit three-pointers to bring the game to one possession throughout the quarter.
However, a 7-2 run to end the first half gave the Monarchs a 36-30 lead heading into halftime.
Mater Dei came out of the break with the upper hand and seemed on its way to pulling away from the Dons, expanding the lead to 43-34 on a Malloy Smith layup with 4:59 on the clock.
Luke Zuffelato then went into attack mode, rattling off a personal 5-0 run thanks to an and-one bucket and a pair of free throws to cut into the deficit. Following a Mater Dei miss, Lowe drove to the cup and got the layup to go to make it 43-41.
After the two teams exchanged empty possessions, Luke Zuffelato drove to the rim and dished the ball to Horn, who took a few steps inside the arc and got a floater to fall to tie the game at 43-43 with 2:41 on the clock.
Mater Dei’s Blake Davidson hit a layup on the other end before Battle stepped back and hit a three-pointer at the top of the key, giving the Dons their first lead of the game at 46-45 with 2:01 left in the third.
The Monarchs responded with a pair of inside baskets, but Wilson drilled a deep three-pointer just before the end of the quarter to tie the game at 49-49 heading into the fourth.
“Since these guys have been in third grade we’ve been shooting,” Greg Zuffelato said. “I’ve coached half of them since third grade, another half since sixth grade and all of them since high school.
“We shoot six or seven times a week and that’s just with me… These guys have put up thousands and thousands of shots and that’s why this team shoots so well.”
The fourth quarter was a battle as both teams exchanged big plays on both ends. After a Mater Dei basket to begin the scoring, Wilson and Zuffelato each hit big three-pointers to take a 55-51 lead with 4:52 left.
Mater Dei swung right back with two unanswered long balls of its own to regain the 57-55 lead at the 3:50 mark.
The Monarch defense then tightened up, holding the Dons scoreless for two and a half minutes while building their lead out to 61-55 with 1:42 left in regulation.
Luke Zuffelato was fouled on the next possession and hit both free throws to bring the score to 61-57, and a Mater Dei miss on the other end set up the final-minute dramatics and the eventual overtime win for the Dons.
Head coach Greg Zuffelato credits his team’s toughness and conditioning down the stretch as key factors in the win.
“Our conditioning is second to none, I give a lot of credit to Nick at P3 (Peak Performance Project),” Zuffelato said. “He’s worked our guys so hard from June until now and they don’t get tired, they just keep pushing.”
The raucous Santa Barbara High crowd also played a crucial role down the stretch as the Dons advanced to the CIF-SS Div. 1 Semifinals.
“Amazing community support, we don’t win without the support,” Greg Zuffelato said. “The pressure we put on them… their shooter is good but he didn’t get his shots tonight, he’s got 1,000 people screaming at him. It’s a tough environment.”
