Titanic Ascent

With stifling defense and strong team resolve, Antelope grabbed its first Sac-Joaquin Section title.

By JIM McCUE | SportStars

As a new school in the early stages of its history, Antelope High School is writing an amazing story — a tale of a boys basketball team on a serious roll. 

With its first class of seniors, the Titans (30-1) captured the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II championship in its second consecutive appearance in the section final at Power Balance Pavilion. 

Antelope’s 77-55 victory over Lodi on March 3 was the team’s 29th straight triumph and will earn head coach Rob Richards’ squad a high seed and first-round bye in the California Interscholastic Federation Northern Regional tournament that began March 7. 

But Richards and the Titans are not done writing their history.

“Chapter One was the regular season and Chapter Two was section,” Richards said of Antelope’s storybook run. “Chapter Three starts (the second week of March) and we are ready to go write our own ending.”

The Titans’ latest chapter lacked drama as the top-seeded Titans led from wire-to-wire and clamped down on the previously hot-shooting Flames. Antelope held Lodi’s shooters to just 32 percent shooting, including a paltry 1-for-18 from 3-point range.

“We knew that we would need to do what we had done the first 30 games this season — play tough defense and make them earn every basket,” Richards said. “We defend as a group and we took the team concept to another level tonight.”

Junior Gabe Bealer, who was new to the team last year, dominated both ends of the floor with a game-high 24 points and 11 rebounds. The 6-foot-5 forward was forced into extra duty inside when junior post player Isaiah Ellis received a pair of controversial technical fouls that disqualified him from the contest a minute before halftime. 

Bealer, who already had 12 points before the Ellis ejection, keyed the Titans’ third-quarter surge that put the game out of reach with a steal and a pair of dunks that put an extra charge into the team and its raucous “Red Zone” cheering section.

“When Gabe’s having fun on the court, he’s an electrifying player,” Richards said. “He has gotten more comfortable every day, and the kid can finish.”

Bealer’s contribution on the boards may have been out of the ordinary, but the humble forward attributed the surge to a very plain truth.

“I just boxed out,” Bealer said. “Isaiah being out gave me more opportunities, but fundamentals was the real reason I got more rebounds.”

Antelope’s run through the competition all season long has been linked to the team’s fundamental belief in generating offense from a stifling defense.

“When people look at our scores, they might think we are some kind of run-and-gun type of offense,” Richards said of Antelope’s average of 65.4 points per game before the section final. “We like to push the ball, but everything is generated from our defense.”

The Titans’ defense got the team running early and often, building a double-digit lead before halftime and answering every Lodi rally. 

Having successfully lived up to its No. 1 seed in the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs, Antelope can now look ahead to bigger and better things. The Titans made a surprising run to the NorCal semifinals a year ago after losing in the section final, but hope to take things farther this year with some home games in the NorCal playoffs.

“Mitty is obviously the best team (in Division II),” Richards said.

“But we honestly believe that we can go toe-to-toe with the Mitty’s and Serra’s. We think we can represent the section and make a good run.”

With his team playing at a high level, Richards is happy to have a high seed in the NorCals, but he is wary of the extra time off that a first-round bye brings. Pointing out that three of the top four seeds from a year ago lost their first Northern Regional opener, the energetic coach would prefer to get his team back on the floor right away.

“We’re back to the land of one-and-done now,” he said. “I don’t like the extra time off, but it will give us a chance to regroup and to go out and do some live scouting of the competition.”

The Titans feared the next chapter of the 2012 season would begin without the services of Ellis, whose disqualification would kept the junior forward out of the team’s NorCal opener per CIF rules. However, the ejection and subsequent suspension were overturned by CIF officials after an Antelope appeal. Both technical fouls called on Ellis were unusual, but the second  left the boisterous Richards speechless and confused.

The coach was quick to point out that the alleged taunting was out of character for the quiet team leader.

When pressed for details of the account provided by the officials, Richards said that he was told by an official that Ellis’s lips were moving when he walked past a Lodi player whose shot was blocked out of bounds by Bealer. 

The coach was not satisfied with the explanation that moving lips were interpreted as taunting words, but stated that he would leave further clarification and justification of the ejection to the section and administrators.

Richards is satisfied, though, with trusting that his seniors, including Kei’Shaun Sinclair, Caleb King, and Jarvis Watkins, will keep the team on point to allow Ellis to continue his season in subsequent rounds of the state playoffs.

“We have a great group of senior leaders,” the coach said, “and I know that they can share the duties of keeping the team focused on the next chapter.”