Granger boys basketball coach David Gibb broke into a sheepish smile, anticipating the first question about his team’s loss to Overlake on Saturday afternoon.

“You saw the stats, right?” he asked, referring to his Spartans’ shooting numbers, which, to be polite, weren’t too good.

But days like this are to be expected when you fly around the floor and virtually every player has the green light to shoot from any spot on the floor.

“It’s not unusual for us to shoot that many (3-pointers). It is unusual for us to miss that many,” Gibb said of his team’s 4-for-35 effort from long distance, a key factor in Granger’s 57-46 loss in the Class 1A state tournament game for fourth and seventh places.

“We’d have liked to have fourth, but seventh is still quite an accomplishment,” Gibb said of the team’s state trophy. “I’m still very proud of the guys. They know they wrote a little Granger basketball history. I’m proud of the fans to show us such support. Everyone is thrilled.”

The team just wanted to give those fans a little better show Saturday.

“It’s good. It’s better than last year,” said Edward Castro, who went over the 1,000-point mark for his career with a game-high 19 points, including all 13 of Granger’s third-quarter points.

Granger did just about everything it wanted and needed to do to win the game — except make shots. The Spartans were just 17 of 73 from the field overall (23.3 percent), in addition to their 3-point woes.

“I’m glad we caught them on the fourth day of a four-day tournament,” Overlake coach John Wiley, whose team earned a trophy in their first-ever trip to state. “It’s a lot harder to shoot (when you get tired).”

“Legs start to play a part,” echoed Gibb of fatigue playing a factor. “We’re a big-time jump-shooting team and at the end of a tournament, the legs start to go.

“A lot of our shots were falling short. It happens.”

Despite that, the Spartans led in the third quarter and were neck-and-neck with Overlake until the Owls finally pulled away in the final four minutes as they protected the basketball.

Overlake, which had 20 turnovers through three quarters, did not turn it over in the fourth quarter.

“Against their press, we needed spacing and it took us awhile to figure that out,” Wiley said. “We’ve got to control the ball to be successful.”

Part of Overlake’s fourth-quarter success against that pressure was because Granger’s Mario Mengarelli, the SCAC West player of the year, injured his ankle with 6:19 left in the game and did not return.

“We missed Mario. Without him, we were not able to press like we wanted to,” Castro said of Mengarelli, who had six steals but struggled offensively, finishing with just five points on 2-for-12 shooting.

Granger trailed 45-42 with five minutes to play, but Overlake’s patience finally paid off as they ripped off eight straight points to open a 53-42 lead with 1:45 to play. In that span, Granger missed six shots, four 3-pointers.

Jonathan Bechtol had the final six points in that burst, giving him 12 for the game.

Aaron Richardson-Osgood, a 6-foot-8 senior, and Colin Madden led Overlake with 13 points apiece.  Richardson-Osgood also had 13 rebounds as Overlake’s size led to a 51-36 rebounding advantage.

“We weren’t able to rebound,” Castro said. “It’s hard with that big guy (Richardson-Osgood) in the middle.”

“It’s a little overwhelming,” Wiley said of earning a trophy. “Our goal was to just get to state and then once we walked through that door, take everything one more step at a time. Now for us to get fourth, it’s a great feeling.”
 

Overlake -- Murphy 0-0 0-0 0, Nelson 2-5 3-5 7, Kelly 0-0 0-0 0, Schmiedl 3-7 0-0 9, Madden 4-12 5-7 13, Bechtol 5-9 2-3 12, Richardson-Osgood 5-10 3-4 13, Poplawski 1-1 0-0 3, Gardner 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 20-46 13-19 57.
Granger -- Solis 1-9 1-1 3, Dodd 0-0 0-0 0, A. Cortez 3-11 0-0 7, Mengarelli 2-12 1-2 5, Rodriguez 0-1 0-0 0, E. Castro 5-25 6-6 19, J. Cortez 1-3 0-0 2, Martinez 0-0 0-0 0, Arriaga 1-5 0-0 2, Alegria 1-2 0-0 2, M. Castro 3-5 0-0 6, Lopez 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 17-73 8-9 46.
Overlake	11	16	10	20	--	57
Granger	12	11	13	10	--	46
3-point goals--O 4-9 (Schmiedl 3-4, Poplawski 1-1, Madden 0-4), G 4-35 (E. Castro 3-18, A. Cortez 1-7, Mengarelli 0-1, Rodriguez 0-1, Solis 0-8). Rebounds--O 51 (Richardson-Osgood 13), G 36 (A. Cortez 8). Assists--O 8 (Madden 6), G 8 (E. Castro 4, Mengarelli 3). Steals--O 0, G 16 (Mengarelli 6). Blocked shots--O 1, G 1. Fouled out--None. Total fouls--O 11, G 18. Technical fouls--None. Turnovers--O 20, G 5.