With 16 seconds on the clock at the end of a back-and-forth battle, Santa Barbara High and Sierra Canyon found themselves tied up at 72-72.
Sierra Canyon’s Gavin Hightower came through for the Trailblazers, dropping in a driving layup to take a 74-72 lead with 2.8 seconds remaining.
Following a timeout, the Dons had an inbounds play from the far baseline, where DJ Wilson took the ball and launched it across the court to Luke Zuffelato, who was waiting at the three-point line.
Zuffelato caught the ball, twisted around and fired a shot that banked off the glass and through the bottom of the net as the buzzer sounded to give Santa Barbara High a 75-74 win and send the Don faithful into a frenzy.
“Walking into it, I was like ‘If I get this ball, it’s going to go in,’” Zuffelato said. “I caught it and just threw it up and we won… all glory to God though, great play, great shot.
“Without all of those other plays we wouldn’t have gotten there, so great team plays, great team win.”
According to Luke Zuffelato and head coach Greg Zuffelato, the game-winning play has been a regular fixture of Santa Barbara High’s practice routine.
“We practice that quite a bit, we got it from Duke, it’s not the exact play but it’s a version of the play that they ran with [Christian] Laettner,” Greg Zuffelato said. “We’ve done that in practice probably 50 times and they executed perfectly.”
The victory avenged last year’s loss to powerhouse Sierra Canyon and capped off the Santa Barbara Holiday Classic for the Dons, who went 3-1 in the tournament.
“We stepped on the court not knowing we were going to win but knowing that we had a good chance,” Greg Zuffelato said. “When you beat a team of Sierra Canyon’s caliber you gotta know that we can beat anybody, especially in whatever division we end up in. We shouldn’t be scared because we can beat anybody.”
The game got out to a bit of a slow start, as both defenses came out of the gates firing. Diesel Lowe started strong for the Dons, scoring the team’s first nine points to take a 9-6 lead midway through the first.
Sierra Canyon fought back to tie it up at 12-12, but a free throw and a three-pointer by Luke Zuffelato gave Santa Barbara High the 16-12 edge after a scrappy first quarter that featured strong team defense.
“Sierra Canyon is so big and strong, we just told them the whole thing is going to be won in the paint,” Greg Zuffelato said. “We scrapped, knocked the ball away and tried to limit second shots. We did everything we could.”
“Owen (Horn), Brent (Sharpton), Cayleb (Miller) are young dudes and they’re not fazed when they get in there and then we’ve got our tough seniors (Luke Zuffelato, Carter Battle, Diesel Lowe) that have seen it all over the years. It’s a good complement.”
The Trailblazers woke up early in the second, beginning the quarter on a 16-7 run while using their size and strength to get to the hoop and take a 28-23 lead with 4:20 left in the half.
The Santa Barbara High duo of Luke Zuffelato and Carter Battle then found their footing in those four minutes of the opening half, accounting for the team’s final 14 points down the stretch.
A deep three-pointer by Luke Zuffelato, who ended the night with a game-high 31, put the Dons in front 37-36 heading into the locker room.
The Dons came out of the break with momentum, continuing to disrupt the Sierra Canyon offense and answering the Trailblazer buckets with scores of their own.
Following a layup by Battle and a three-pointer from Luke Zuffelato, Santa Barbara High led 52-44 halfway through the quarter to prompt a Sierra Canyon timeout.
The Trailblazers then ended the quarter by putting on a show, getting to the cup at will and slamming home dunk after dunk to build up a 62-58 lead with one quarter to play.
Sierra Canyon held the lead for the majority of the fourth quarter, but the Dons cut it down to one point on a pair of free throws by Luke Zuffelato with 2:33 to go.
After three Trailblazer free throws, Lowe brought Santa Barbara back to within one point with a three-pointer to make it 71-70 with 20 seconds on the clock.
Hightower was then sent to the free-throw line after a Dons foul, where he hit the first shot and missed the second. As the ball was coming off the rim, Luke Zuffelato was fouled from behind and sent to the free-throw line down two points because Santa Barbara was in the bonus.
Luke Zuffelato didn’t waver, knocking down both shots from the charity stripe to set up his last-second dramatics and the victory.
“It’s amazing the grit that this team has, all 18 of us, everyone contributes in their own way,” Luke Zuffelato said. “[Sierra Canyon] is a great team but we battled and we got it done.”
While Luke Zuffelato led the way, Lowe collected 18 points and Battle chipped in 14 in a strong all-around performance by the Dons.
As for the Trailblazers, Bryce Cofield poured in 21 points to pace the scoring attack and Chris Nwuli accumulated 17 points in the paint and at the free-throw line.
The Dons will now travel to Arizona to begin the Nike Tournament of Champions on Thursday.