The boys basketball league season came to an end last night as the Tigers traveled to Shingle Springs for a matchup with the Ponderosa Bruins. The varsity and JV teams fell to the Bruins while the freshman team emerged victorious. Despite the loss, the varsity boys managed to secure the seventh seed in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II playoff bracket and will play a home game against the 10-seeded Yuba City Honkers.

VARSITY

The varsity Tigers fell to Ponderosa by a score of 74-62. They finished the season 16-11 overall and 9-5 in Capital Valley Conference league play which was good enough for a tie with the Cosumnes Oaks Wolfpack for third place in league. Because they had the tiebreaker over the Wolfpack, the Tigers earned the third-place playoff spot.

Junior guard Joe Cirrincione is confident that the team will be able to bounce back from its tough away loss to Ponderosa and feels that the Bruins gave them a good measure of what to expect in the playoffs.

“Obviously losing on the road isn’t the way we wanted to end our season,” Cirrincione said. “With that said, I think we will be focused and ready to go for the game against Yuba City, and that the environment and crowd that [Ponderosa] had was a good test for what we are hopefully going to face in the later rounds of playoffs.”  

Although the environment was a good replica, Cirrincione says that he and his team understand what they have to do to succeed in the playoffs.

“We have to have the best week of practice that we have had this season,” Cirrincione said. “We have to be the most focused and energized we have been all year.”

JV

The JV team’s attempt at a perfect league season came to a halt last night, as they were defeated by a score of  86-64. This was only the third loss for the Tigers this year, finishing the season 24-3 overall and 13-1 in league play. Despite losing, the Tigers still won the CVC title by a commanding 3 games.

Sophomore guard Hayden Hatch feels that the Tigers came out expecting to win and that this may have affected their focus and effort.

“I don’t think that we came out cocky but I definitely think we came out expecting to win,” Hatch said. “I think we also overestimated how badly they would want to spoil our perfect season.”

However, Hatch is also proud of the team’s season and recognizes its success.

“We achieved almost all of our goals,” Hatch said. “We fell just short of the undefeated-in-league goal but we were still one of the best and most fun teams that I’ve ever been on and I really enjoyed playing this year.”

FRESHMAN

The freshman team concluded its season with a 58-51 win over the Bruins. The boys finished the season with a 18-9 overall record and an 11-3 record in CVC play. After finishing the first half of the season 5-2, the Tigers were able to finish out the second half 6-1, which is something that pleased guard Tanner Rubey.

“When we finished the first half of the season with two losses I think we all thought we could have done better,” Rubey said. “Even though it was only one game, we were able to be better in the second half than we were in the first half and that was one of our bigger goals.”