Miguel Bazaldua stared at the statistics sheet and shook his head. The numbers from the final Granger basketball game of the 2008-09 season were almost too bizarre for the Spartans head coach to believe.

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“I have no answer,” he sighed. “Mychal Lopez ... one-for-15. Unreal. Zapien ... two-for-10. Between the two of them, that’s three-for-35. Unbelievable. I would never have believed it.”

No one who had followed the Spartans’ run to their first SCAC district tournament championship in four decades would have believed it either. Lopez and Zapien, and for that matter the rest of the Spartans (17-8), ranked among the SCAC’s top shooters.

But one would never have known that by their season-ending 54-40 loss to Castle Rock in a Thursday consolation-bracket game. They shot an abysmal 15-for-60 (25 percent) from the field, and a particularly gruesome 5-for-28 on 3-pointers, the area at which the Spartans normally excel.

“They started shooting the ball a little bit poorly, especially with the 3-pointers,” said Castle Rock coach Kevin Johnson, whose team advances to a 12:30 p.m. loser-out, winner-gets-a-trophy game Friday against Naches Valley.

“But they keep coming at you defensively, I can tell you that — they defend as hard as anybody we’ve played all year.”

But while the Spartans came up with 10 steals on defense and played carefully with the ball, committing just 10 turnovers themselves, they simply couldn’t make a shot to save their season.

“They’re great kids,” Bazaldua said. “They battled. They were just cold. It’s hard when they’re asking you, ‘Coach, what am I doing wrong? Is there something I’m doing wrong with my shot?’”

With the normally explosive Lopez and Zapien simultaneously having their worst game of the season, others stepped up. Center Matthew Paul, who typically doesn’t look for his shot, shot 4-for-8 and scored 10 points, while Brandon Oswalt and Ben Jochen came off the bench to score 11 and six points, respectively.

“When those other guys went south, they had to pick up the slack,” Bazaldua said. “Jochen played so hard, he was gassed. He was saying, ‘Coach, I gotta come out.’ He gave us great minutes, though.”

But they weren’t enough to offset the play of 6-3 Rockets center Zack Gehring and ultra-active guard Dustin Hamilton, who combined for 21 points and 20 rebounds.

Several of the Spartans will be back next year, with some outstanding talent coming up from younger classes as well, and Granger could have another state-tournament run next year.

But any run is bound to be short when the shots that normally fall instead long, short or wide of the mark.

“It’s just tough,” Bazaldua said, “when you have your worst shooting slump of the year during the two games at state.”