By MARK MOLINA | STAFF WRITER
After trailing the Rivera Raiders by 12 with 3:32 to go in the fourth, the San Benito Greyhounds clawed their way back and trailed by just one with 34 seconds on the clock.
The Greyhounds’ comeback would be for naught in the end as the Raiders put in a pair of buckets in the last 23 seconds to pick up a 48-43 win in the District 32-6A opener Friday afternoon at Rivera High School.
Raiders guard Johan Morales put his team up 46-43 after he got ahead of the Greyhound press and drove in for a layup with 23 seconds to play.
San Benito’s Aaron Medrano had a chance to tie the game with a 3 on the ensuing possession, but the missed shot was short, allowing a buzzer-beating layup by Rivera’s Oscar Lozoya on the other end.
Rivera head coach Saul Villarreal said his defense held tough and weathered the storm.
“We played a lot better defense towards the end,” Rivera head coach Saul Villarreal said. “The players decided they wanted to tighten up on defense and that’s what we did; we played tough defense and San Benito shoots the ball real well.”
San Benito (5-10, 0-1) felt the Rivera (10-8, 1-0) defensive pressure and it was held without a field goal for the first 3 1/2 minutes of the fourth quarter and struggled to get an offensive rhythm throughout the game.
“Overall my hat’s off to (coach Villarreal) and Rivera — they came to play,” San Benito head coach Eddie Abrego said. “Everybody knows that this district is tough. I told our boys that it’s disrespectful to not come out for four quarters. If they would have played with the same intensity and energy that they did in the last minute, it would have been a different outcome.
“We can have all the excuses we want, but in the end, we only played about two minutes.”
Leading the way for the Raiders was Lozoya, who after not scoring in the first period, put up 23 points over the final three quarters.
That included an 11-point second quarter in which he knocked in 3 of his 5 treys on the day. The Raiders made seven shots from beyond the arc as a team.
David Sanchez was one of two players for San Benito to score in double digits with 13 points. The other was David Juarez, who finished with 10, including a trio of 3s on the day.
San Benito trailed 7-2 early, but finished the first quarter on a 9-2 run.
The Greyhounds led by as many as five in the second quarter before the Raiders scored nine unanswered, capped off with a Lozoya 3 to make it 18-14.
Rivera never trailed after that.
San Benito made things interesting by finishing the third quarter with five straight points and mounting a 13-6 run over the final three minutes of the fourth, but couldn’t get over the hump.