Hooks, floaters, threes and fun

We thought we could win the Estancia Basketball Community Shootout this year. We really did.

We brought back the nucleus of our Daily Pilot team, two sportswriters, me and Matt Szabo, our sports editor, Steve Virgen, and a 54-year-old local pastor, Mike Decker. For Decker’s sake, the good part was that we fouled more than we used foul language on the court during the two-day, 12-team tournament that benefited the Estancia High boys’ basketball program.

Virgen assembled the Daily Pilot team and he was smart enough to recruit two talented guys outside of the newsroom. The two were Drew Shallahamer, a 40-year-old medical sales rep, and Brice Stillman, who at 27 was the youngest member on the team.

Virgen, a 41-year-old playing GM, actually had to make a couple of cuts. At one point, he wasn’t sure who to cut. It would’ve looked bad if he had cut his 36- and 35-year-old reporters because of the team’s name.

The team name was also the reason why for the second consecutive year the tournament director, Estancia boys’ basketball coach Xavier Castellano, made sure his team opened the Estancia Basketball Community Shootout against the Daily Pilot. Castellano’s “Shooter Flatch” team featured three former Estancia standouts, 6-foot-6 Brandon Casillas, a 1997 graduate, 6-4 Sam Nelson, a 1998 graduate, and 6-4 Jimmy Faulkner, a 1993 graduate, and Justin Shea, who graduated from Corona del Mar in 1999.

We weren’t worried about the 5-9 Castellano, a 1998 Estancia graduate, but his team boasted too much size and too many outside threats. Our biggest guy was Szabo, who’s 6-2, and he was trying to defend Casillas, who was launching shots from 30 feet out.

Those deep three-pointers went in, not only for Casillas. As a result, we got hammered for the second straight year, losing the four-on-four opener, 21-9, on Friday.

Almost an hour later, we had our second contest, which turned out to be much more competitive, but we lost to 38th Street, 17-14. Mark Allred, a 2008 Estancia graduate, led 38th Street.

Winning the tournament was now out of the picture. We were in the loser’s bracket. We were now trying to win just one game. We had two scheduled for Saturday morning.

We had no idea that our first game the next day would be against two familiar faces. Castellano and Casillas filled in for the “Young Gunz” team because it needed a couple of players. Seeing Castellano and Casillas again fueled us, and somehow, behind a balanced attack, we managed to win, 25-22.

“You saw me cramp up at the end,” Castellano said was the reason for his team losing. “Honestly, I wasn’t taking it that seriously, but then you hit me two times. That’s all you got to do to wake me up. I didn’t want to lose that game, to tell you the truth, but, you know, you guys got us. It was fun. Szabo’s two points killed us. Szabo scored two points. That’s what killed us, Matt Szabo’s two big points.”

Those two big points were more than Virgen scored during the entire four-game tournament. But Virgen is a team guy, he doesn’t need to score to contribute.

As for me, Castellano called me the James Harden of the Daily Pilot. And it wasn’t solely because I’m left-handed like the guard for the Houston Rockets.

“It’s because you play no defense, you’re left-handed and you shoot every time,” Castellano said.

I missed my fair of hook shots and floaters, but I also made some in key moments, especially down the stretch in our fourth game.

For the second straight year, I somehow hit the game-winner in our team’s final game. We beat Hot Shot$, 17-16, and we celebrated like we won the tournament. The real tournament winners were the “Sons of Heredia” and the championship team included Josh Mendoza, a 2014 Estancia graduate, and Davon Joyner, a 2011 Estancia graduate.

Castellano congratulated the Sons of Heredia for beating “South Coast Metro” to claim the second annual Estancia Basketball Community Shootout. He also thanked the Daily Pilot for coming out and supporting his Estancia program.

We all had a lot of fun, and as Shallahamer point out, the best part was supporting a local high school and having some friendly and physical competition.

Castellano said we played a lot better on the second day. Then he said I must have held something against Virgen because of Virgen’s lack of playing time.

“I don’t think you let Steve go in the games,” Castellano said. “You told him he’s no longer on the team because he’s going to [leave the Daily Pilot to oversea the] Huntington Beach [Independent and Coastline Pilot during the summer] or whatever.”