Boys basketball falls behind early, can’t catch up
Piedmont High School’s boys basketball team fell behind once again in its North Coast Section Division 4 championship game against St. Patrick-St. Vincent at San Leandro High on March 1.
Once again, the Highlanders rallied.
But what has become a season-long habit for Piedmont ended up in a 75-70 loss. It’s the second consecutive season the Highlanders have finished as the runner-up in an NCS bracket. Last year, they lost the final to University-San Francisco.
“I’m proud of how we fought,” Ravi Silverberg said. “I feel like we can’t go down 20 points. We let them have so many runs. It’s hard for us to come back when we let run after run. We were making shots in the first quarter. But if we can’t get stops on defense, it’s hard to win.”
Piedmont fell behind by as much as 21 before rallying in the latter part of the fourth quarter. The Highlanders got it to 70-67 and had the ball but couldn’t get any closer.
“That’s what we’ve sort done all year,” Piedmont coach Ben Spencer said. “Berkeley High, 12-point lead. All these teams that we play, we give them eight, nine, 10 points right off the bat because we don’t come ready to play and then we have to battle back.”
“Just a little bit too late. But I’m proud of how the kids battled and how hard they played.”
The Bruins scored the first eight points of the game. Piedmont immediately rallied back to cut the deficit to 17-14. St. Patrick-St. Vincent then upped it to 23-16 at the end of the quarter.
Silverberg said, “That was the story of the game.”
He continued, “We have to be out of the gate locked in. If we could get our own early leads, if they go on runs, we could still be up two or three, then we could extend our lead. If we come out and we’re down 10 off the bat, they go on a run, now they’re up 20.”
The key is defense.
“We have to get defensive stops and we have to stack them,” Silverberg said. “I think that’s a big thing. We’ll get one stop, but then they score the next three plays. Or we’ll get two stops and they’ll score the next four. If we could get three, four stops in a row and we get momentum, I think that will help us a lot.”
St. Patrick-St. Vincent’s Christian Trusclair (in black) is pressured by Piedmont’s Cash Panico (23) and Beach Lorin (20) during the fourth quarter. The press helped the HIghlanders rally but they came up short. 
St. Patrick-St. Vincent’s Christian Trusclair (0) has his eyes on Piedmont’s Cash Panico (23). St. Patrick-St. Vincent held on for a 75-70 victory. 
Piedmont’s Lucian Fang Ring (11) gets up to contest a potential shot by St. Patrick-St. Vincent’s Ronald Rhymes (1) in the first half of the Highlanders loss in the NCS Division 4 championship game.
Silverberg led Piedmont with 33 points, three rebounds and three assists. Dillon Casey fouled out with three minutes, 52 seconds left in the game, leaving Silverberg to take over most of the scoring load. Casey finished with 16 points and five assists.
“It has kind of been the blessing of Dillon going out with an ankle injury and missing five games, I think Ravi in that time saw the opportunity of ‘Hey, I’m the best player on the floor,’” Spencer said. “I think it really woke him up to how good he is instead of being backseat to Dillon, I think he realizes, ‘Holy crap, I’m a hell of a player.’ Ravi, he’s a gamer.”
The opposing bench certainly noticed.
“We wanted to try to contain (Casey), (Silverberg) and (P.J. Brayer),” Bruins coach Derek Walker said. “We didn’t do too well on (Silverberg). He was a senior who went down how you expect a senior to play and compete. Luckily, we had enough of a cushion because they were coming.”
A couple of things doomed the Piedmont comeback effort. One, the lead was just too big, too late. Two, the Highlanders just couldn’t quite take advantage of enough of their opportunities. Silverberg missed five of nine free throws in the fourth quarter. An inbounds play in the final two minutes, trailing 70-67 at the time, led to a missed shot from right under the basket by Brayer.
“We ran our out of bounds play perfectly,” Spencer said.
The other factor was rebounding. The Bruins outrebounded Piedmont, 46-26. Cash Panico led the Highlanders with seven. Three St. Patrick-St. Vincent players had seven or more: Isaiah Wilson (10), Ronald Rhymes (eight) and Terry Finn (seven).
“I don’t even want to know what it was,” Spencer said of the differential. “They probably had 20 on second chance points. If they had 20 second chance points, even if we clean up half of those boards, we might take that one.”
For the Bruins, it was a sweet feeling.
“Amazing,” said Trusclair, who finished with 19 points. “We really weren’t supposed to be here. They didn’t believe in us at all. We got here. It definitely feels good, it feels amazing.”
Wilson had 18 points as did Deuce Walker off of the bench.
Both teams qualified for the California Interscholastic Federation playoffs. Piedmont is 15-15 on the season. St. Patrick-St. Vincent is 15-13.