Coast Union falls in second round of CIF playoffs
After winning the Coast Valley League with a 10-0 record and holding off the AGBU Spartans in a thrilling 45-42 home victory in Round 1 of the CIF Division 5A tournament Wednesday, Feb. 17, Coast Union got lucky. The Broncos won a coin toss that allowed them host Round 2 of the playoffs.
That’s where their luck ended, as the seven-player Bronco squad dropped a 55-24 decision to the St. Bernard Vikings from Playa Del Rey on Friday, Feb. 19.
The visitors boasted a roster of 15 lightning-quick and defensively aggressive players who stifled Coast Union in every facet of the game. They instituted a smothering, relentless full-court press at the start of the game that forced repeated turnovers, and Coast’s initial offensive goal became simply getting the ball over midcourt in the allotted 10 seconds.
The score at halftime was 34-7, and after three quarters it was 46-16.
Head coach Tim May said St. Bernard was “obviously the best team we played all year. We knew going in we couldn’t get into a transition game with them. … There’s just no way we are going to compete at their style.”
Auggie Johnson led the Broncos with 9 points; Jez Lawson had 5 points and three rebounds. Sam MacKinnon grabbed four rebounds to go with 2 points, and Riley Kennedy tallied 4 points.
After the game, May added, “We have nothing to hang our heads over this game. We knew we were overmatched, but we continued to compete anyway and played the full 32 minutes.”
May, who teaches English literature at Coast Union, said when his team — five juniors and two sophomores — saw they were 31 points behind the No. 1 team in Division 5A, they knew they would need to “improve every facet of our game and try to close that gap as much as possible in the offseason.”
“These guys have met every challenge I have given them,” May explained. “I’m thrilled to not only have them all back next year, but to put in a full offseason of hard work and effort.”
The Broncos had only one single playoff game in six years coming into this CIF playoff round, so getting into the second round was an accomplishment that is worthy of note.
They got there by winning one of the most exciting, evenly matched home playoff games in recent years, prevailing 45-42 against the AGBU Spartans in the first round Feb. 17.
Sam MacKinnon led the team with 12 points and three rebounds; Lawson added 10, Johnson had 9, and Jack MacKinnon had 8 points for Coast.
This sports report was special to The Cambrian.
This story was originally published February 24, 2016 at 10:13 AM with the headline "Coast Union falls in second round of CIF playoffs."