The562’s coverage of Cabrillo Athletics is sponsored by the Cohn Family.
As the Cabrillo Jaguars walked off their home court for the final time this season, they were showered with applause from their home fans on the West Side. Everyone who showed up to support the Jags during their CIF-SS Division 4A quarterfinal against Temecula Valley rose as one, offering a standing ovation to the greatest season in Cabrillo Basketball history.
The Jags ended up on the wrong side of a 78-73 final score; a gut-wrenching overtime loss that saw the home team mere centimeters from a win on more than one occasion.
Junior guard Lincoln Dean put on a virtuoso performance, finishing with a team-high 30 points on the strength of six made three-pointers. He was an eyelash away from hitting a seventh triple at the end of regulation, but his potential game-winning shot rimmed out as time expired in the fourth quarter.
Second-year head coach Chris Spencer was eager to give praise to his junior point guard, who has helped carry this team over the last few weeks.
“I’m super proud. There’s some stuff that we’re gonna clean up on film, but he’s just gonna keep improving and getting better,” said Spencer of Dean. “I thought he did a great job. Even down to this last game, I think he played excellent. We were just a couple of possessions away, a couple of clean looks away from him winning it.”
The Jags trailed 28-21 after a whirlwind of a first quarter, where both offenses came out firing and connecting. Temecula Valley freshman Jeremiah Profit had 15 of his game-high 39 points during that opening eight minutes, but it didn’t take long for the Jags to tie things up in the second quarter.
The Golden Bears scored just seven points in the second, while Cabrillo closed the half on a 9-0 spurt to lead 44-35 at intermission.
Temecula Valley’s offense continued to sputter in the second half, as they accumulated an 8:42 scoring drought across the second and third quarters. That allowed Cabrillo to go on a 16-0 run, with back-to-back threes from Dean putting the score at 51-35 in favor of the home side.
“Cabrillo did a great job of playing hard,” said Temecula Valley head coach James Profit.
“Regardless if the ref calls a foul or not, regardless if we scored or not, they continued to play hard. And our boys had been through that kind of a battle before … We love it, we welcome that challenge. And so hats off to (Cabrillo), they played really hard. I was very, very impressed with the way they played.”
Mason Johnson had the highlight of the night in the third quarter, throwing down a one-handed slam dunk over a Temecula Valley defender. The junior finished with 17 points and 16 rebounds, and he helped Cabrillo to a 57-49 lead after three.
The fourth quarter unfortunately exposed a weakness for the Jags, as they really struggled against Temecula Valley’s full-court pressure. After Dean hit back-to-back three pointers to give the Jags a 65-55 lead, the visitors used their press to force a slew of turnovers and prevent Cabrillo from getting any looks at the bucket. That sparked a game-changing 13-1 run, putting the visitors on top, 68-66, with a minute to play.
“For us, we pride ourselves on paces, whether that’s offensively or defensively,” Profit explained of his team’s switch to the full-court press. “We had to pick it up fullcourt to create that pace that we wanted. So I thought it was very effective. It’s not something that we use often because we’re able to get out and go, but when we do go to it I have enough faith in our guys to stay the course with that, and use that as our way to score baskets as well.”
The extra shots certainly paid off, and Taj Jackson had eight of his 18 points in that fourth quarter for the Golden Bears.
After Temecula Valley took their first lead since early in the second quarter, Johnson answered with a three-point play the other way to make it 69-68 Cabrillo with under a minute left. A Temecula Valley free throw tied the game, then in the closing seconds it looked like the Jags had taken the lead, but a crucial call took the points off the scoreboard.
With 12 seconds on the clock and the score tied, Irvin Choice put up a three-point attempt in front of the Cabrillo bench. The ball bounced off the rim straight up above the basket, then dropped straight back down through the net, setting off a furious celebration. However, the official closest to Choice immediately blew his whistle and signaled that the ball had made contact with one of the support straps above the hoop, resulting in a dead ball and no points.
After reviewing multiple camera angles of the shot, it did appear that the ball grazed one of the straps above the hoop, but it’s difficult to draw a definitive conclusion given how close it was.
Remarkably, Cabrillo got a second chance to win the game in regulation, inbounding the ball with :02 on the clock. Dean let loose a shot in almost the exact same spot where Choice shot his, only this time it was the rim that denied the Jags, letting the ball swirl around before spitting it back out and sending the game to overtime, 69-69.
The Jags took a 73-71 lead in the extra period, but again it was a turnover that allowed an easy bucket for the Golden Bears to tie it up. With 30 seconds left, a foul was called on Cabrillo as Profit drove toward the basket. He made the first free throw for a 74-73 lead, then Elijah Yorke pulled down an offensive rebound after Profit missed the second. Cabrillo was then forced to foul, and Jackson made a pair of clutch free throws to put the Golden Bears up by three.
Cabrillo got a look at a potential game-tying three-pointer, but missed, and then turned over the offensive rebound to allow Temecula Valley to ice the game at the free throw line. The visitors were an impressive 20/24 at the charity stripe, while Cabrillo made 11 of 17 attempts.
Temecula Valley advances to Friday’s semifinal round, where they will host Estancia.
“All you want is a chance to be in the game, and I felt we played our way into a game,” said Spencer of the loss. “Despite our mistakes, everything we did put ourselves into a one-possession overtime game. You can't ask for much more than that. And I thought we did a lot of things down the stretch to lose the game and we deserved to lose that game. And that's kind of how it always works out.”
Despite the loss, the 2023-24 season was a landmark achievement for Spencer and his emerging program. Their 17 wins set a new standard for the program, they returned to the postseason for the first time in more than a decade, and they earned the first playoff win(s) in program history.
The crowd was electric for both playoff games hosted at Cabrillo, and a solid contingent of Jaguars parents, fans, students, and administrators all stood outside the gym to applaud the players and coaches as they left.
“They rallied. Once they saw what we had, saw some close Moore League games, they believed in us,” said Spencer of the community’s support for his program this season. “And they never stopped supporting us, from the first day we made our mark and as we’ve continued to play. We’ve had full support from administration to community to alumni, man, a great crowd tonight. One of the best places to be.”
