San Marin Shocks O'Dowd, Heads to NCS Basketball Title Game

’s epic boys basketball season just got, uh, epicker.

The Mustangs pulled off a jaw-dropping upset Wednesday with a 51-46 victory over Oakland powerhouse Bishop O’Dowd, the No. 1 seed in the North Coast Section Division III tournament semifinals.

Senior center Stuart Wesonga had 26 points, 25 rebounds and six blocked shots and senior point guard Ryan Zirkle nailed his free throws down the stretch to boost San Marin, which last played for an NCS title in 1993.

San Marin (28-4), seeded fifth, plays No. 2 seed El Cerrito at 8 p.m. Saturday night for the NCS title.  The game will be played at McKeon Pavilion on the campus of St. Mary’s College in Moraga. El Cerrito (22-6) beat No. 3 Analy, 63-52, on Wednesday.

The Mustangs didn’t lead the game until Chris Glennon’s 3-pointer with 2:45 left in the game put them ahead 45-44. Glennon, a senior forward, scored nine of his 12 points in the decisive fourth quarter.

What inspired Glennon? Some video clips.

“I remember San Marin played Analy two years ago in NCS,” Glennon said, “and me and my dad drove up there, watched San Marin get killed and Analy went on to beat Bishop O’Dowd and win NCS.  There’s a video on YouTube of that, and I watched it, like, 10 times today.”

Still, the Mustangs were jittery in the early going, fumbling the ball and missing passes and allowing Bishop O’Dowd to lead by as much as 16 points at 26-10. A Wesonga dunk stopped the bleeding.

“Let’s not lie: We’re out of our element playing in this. We haven’t been this far,” San Marin coach Craig Pitti said. “That doesn’t mean we can’t play at this level, it’s just … (the Dragons) play in this every year. We needed to just settle down and focus and get back to our game plan, and when we finally did, mid-second quarter, things started to click.”

San Marin, champions of the Marin County Athletic League, trailed 20-10 after one quarter and 27-20 at the half. With 2:28 left in the third quarter, Wesonga made a bucket and a foul shot to close the O’Dowd lead to 33-31. Another Wesonga score closed it to one point, 36-35, but a Dragon layup at the buzzer made it 38-35 at the end of the third quarter.

The gym erupted with a Richter-scale roar when Glennon hit a 3-pointer to give the Mustangs their first lead. With 1:18 left, he hit a pair of foul shots for a 47-44 lead, but Terrence King Jr. of the Dragons sank a bucket to close it back to 47-46.

Wesonga’s putback of a missed shot with 38 seconds left made it 49-46 San Marin. Zirkle then snagged a huge rebound at the other end of the court and was fouled with 7.5 seconds left. Zirkle said he tried to block out the memory of missing two foul shots late in the third quarter as he stepped to the line in the waning seconds of the game.

“I swished left both times (on the third-quarter shots),” he said. “I was a little frustrated, but I knew I’d probably get back to the line at some point. It came down to the end right there and I just relaxed, took a deep breath and sank them both.”

The fans poured onto the court as the buzzer sounded and several players just stood with mouths agape.

“I don’t even have any words,” Glennon said during the celebratory hysteria.

Other than Wesonga and Glennon, no other Mustang scored more than five points.

Brandon Ashley, a friend of Wesonga from their AAU youth basketball days, was expected by many to dominate the game. Instead, he was had 21 points but 13 of those came in the first quarter. No other Dragon had more than seven points. Anders Haas, O’Dowd’s top outside shooter, was held to two points.

San Marin’s Hank Moroski Gymnasium was nearly full 30 minutes before the 7 p.m. tipoff following a warning that the game was sure to be a sellout. The crowd was a major factor in the victory, several Mustangs said.