Boys’ basketball: Etiwanda came close but Mater Dei found a way to win
A day after his team’s 67-64 loss to Santa Ana Mater Dei in double overtime, Etiwanda Coach Dave Kleckner reflected on a game that will go down in history as a classic.
“They battled their hearts out,” Kleckner said of his players. “That would have been the biggest win in our school history.”
Kleckner felt that a foul should have been called after his team stole an inbounds pass in the final seconds of the second overtime down by one. Somehow, Stanley Johnson ended up with the ball for Mater Dei and made two free throws with 4.2 seconds left.
“Our kids showed a ton of resiliency,” he said. “We kind of got punched early and recovered. We had an eight-point lead for a minute. I was really proud of the way our kids responded. They came out with a lot of confidence. I thought we did a good job executing what we wanted to do and getting the game to the tempo we wanted.”
Kleckner said a key moment was when Delewis Johnson got into foul trouble and then fouled out. He was assigned to guard Johnson and was performing well. Johnson took advantage and scored 28 points in the fourth quarter and the two overtimes and finished with 38 points.
“Stanley is going to take over games at tne end. We know that,” he said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t have our best defender on him.”
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