W9: Swishers almost falter, Passion Posse doesn’t

by Chuck Martin

Thursday, June 10, 2010 – San Francisco CA – City Swishers snatched last-second victory from defeat to edge Mack Attack, and Passion Posse finally succeeded in holding a lead to get only their second win in Castro Basketball League (CBL) action tonight.

City Swishers played a near duplicate of its previous game against Defenders, this time facing a determined Mack Attack team that wanted to challenge the B Division leaders and close the gap in the standings. Swishers started strong, although the game was low-scoring early, but finishing the first half with a solid 19-14 lead. In the second half, however, they fell apart once again, allowing their opponent to close the gap.

This time, Mack Attack not only closed the gap, but took the lead late, largely on the strength of four straight  3-ponters from Randy Williams in the final couple of minutes, the last one banking in with just seconds to go. City Swishers called a timeout and was able to get the ball inside to Courtney Pope for an almost-miracle basket with just 2 seconds to go–and drawing a foul. They missed the shot but were able to score the rebound as time ran out and hold on to a win, 34-33.

City Swishers 34

Mack Attack 33

Gay Fish began its quest to catch the A Division leaders, a Herculean task being 2 1/2 games back going into play, by going up 8-0 on Passion Posse, who took more then 3 1/2 minutes to score their first point. But by the time they scored their next, on a free throw 9:30 in, it was 15-3; Passion Posse was just having trouble finding an offense. It wasn’t until there was just 4:30 left in the half that they made it to double digits in scoring, and by then, Gay Fish had run the lead to 21-10. And with the help of two threes in the last minute, Gay Fish had fully doubled up Passion Posse, who put one in as time was expiring, 30-15.

Passion Posse regained some of their passion to begin the second half, scoring 12 quick points in the first 5 minutes and cutting the lead to 36-27. And then it became a dogfight. Or a fish fight. At the 7:00 mark, Gay Fish still led, but by on 7, 39-33, and Passion Posse looking like it had the fire, especially when they hit a three seconds later to cut the gap to 39-36. Gay Fish was finding it as tough to find the hole as Passion Posse did in the first half. Finally, with 1:18 left in the game, on two foul shots, Passion Posse finally ties the game, at 40-40. Gay Fish came back and broke their own drought with a quick inside shot, and Passion Posse did the same to knot the game again at 42-42. Gay Fish grabbed a rebound and fought for a putback with 25 seconds to go to re-grab the lead at 44-42. Passion Posse drove and drew a foul with 14 seconds on the clock, making both to tie it up once again, 42-42. Gay Fish worked for a final shot and was fouled on the drive with 5.2 left. But they missed the front end of the one-and-one, and got lucky when the rebound ricocheted off of Passion Posse. With 3.9 ticks on the clock, Gay Fish inbounded, but was only able to get off a three that bounced off the front of the rim, sending the game to overtime.

Passion Posse grabbed the tip and worked a score to take its first lead of the game early in the overtime, 46-44. Gay Fish came right back to make it 46-46, and Gay Fish hit a three to go up 49-46. Gay Fish responded in kind, with 1:15 left, to make it 49-49. A miss by each team let Passion Posse have a shot and they hit, but early in the shot clock. Gay Fish had one more chance, but missed a three and two putbacks, and Passion Posse grabbed the final rebound to hold on to the 51-49 win.

Passion Posse 51

Gay Fish 49

The tilt between the two B Division basement teams began with Moonlanding breaking out to a 7-2 lead over Defenders in the first 5 minutes taking advantage of a Defenders team that just was not able to find its shooting range early. In fact, over the next 5 minutes, the only points that Defenders was able to get was by free throw, and by then Moonlanding had extended their lead to 14-6. Then it was Moonlanding’s turn to go dead, although Defenders wasn’t exactly burning up the offensive stat sheet in the void, trimming the lead to only 14-10 with 5 minutes left in the half. Defenders kept chipping away and managed to tie the game at 14-14 with 3 minutes to go. The tie seemed to wake Moonlanding up and they hit a couple of quick baskets to re-take the lead at 18-14, and two foul shots with 2.5 seconds left resulted in the 20-14 halftime score.

Defenders worked their way closer in the first 5 minutes of the second half cutting the lead to 22-19, but it wasn’t exactly pretty. Tenacious could be a good word, but not pretty. The shots still were not falling much for either team, and sloppy turnovers were prevalent. Over the next 5 minutes, only 7 points were scored. Total. By both teams combined, the score still with Moonlanding leading 27-21. Defenders tried to hang in, but a three with just over 8 minutes to go made it 32-25. The teams basically traded occasional baskets, and with 5 minutes to go, Moonlanding was still up, 36-28. Defenders hit a three with 2 minutes left to cut the lead to 36-32. Moonlanding scored off a rebound with 1:30 left to extend the lead back to 38-32, and hit another basket a few seconds later to basically seal the victory. Defenders was left only the option to foul, and although Moonlanding didn’t hit its first one on the first try, they were able to play keep-away long enough to take the 41-32 win.

The night’s results mean that High Tops (& Bottoms) and Team Jacob have clinched the top two playoff seeds in the A Division, so with 2 games left, it just remains to be seen who will get the #1 seed. The two teams face each other this coming week, and the winner will clinch the top seed because each has beaten the other once so far, so the winner of this game will have the head-to-head tiebreaker should the two teams finish tied. Meanwhile, City Swishers needs just one more win in its last 3 games to clinch top seed in the B Division, and its first test will be next week against a hungry Moonlanding team that’s tied for second with Mack Attack. Mack Attack is the only team that can overtake City Swishers because the best either team can do in W-L is tie, and Moonlanding has already lost to City Swishers twice, meaning they cannot win a head-to-head tiebreaker, but City Swishers and Mack Attack have split their first two games, so if Swishers falter in their next two games and Mack Attack wins its next one, the regular season finale, the last game of the last night pf play before the playoffs, will be for the #1 seed.

Next week starts with the two A Division leaders looking for the edge as the playoffs approach, followed by all four B Division teams jockeying for playoff positioning. All games are on the Mark Bingham court at the Eureka Valley Recreation Center, 100 Collingwood (behind Delano’s IGA), and are free for the public to view. And view the league schedule and game results here.