Hillmen drop OT heartbreaker to Christian Brothers

Placer High School had a 10-point lead after three quarters in Friday night's Sac-Joaquin Section Division III boys basketball quarterfinal, but it was about as uncomfortable a double-digit cushion as it could have been. The No. 3 seed Hillmen led a majority of the night, but No. 6 Christian Brothers stayed within striking distance. The Falcons managed to tie the score with two free throws with four seconds remaining and made stops in overtime to edge Placer 74-69, leaving the home crowd of Auburn's Earl Crabbe Gym stunned. The Falcons outscored the Hillmen 28-13 in the fourth quarter and overtime. "We have had a lot of close games all year and this group has a lot of experience in these tight matchups," Placer coach Nate Swesey said. "Christian Brothers picked it up. Our kids played their butts off, but Christian Brothers just got to the rim and made their threes. When we got to overtime, they got a couple more than we did." Leading the comeback effort for the Falcons was junior forward Stephan Hewitt, who scored 25 of his game-high 29 points in the second half and overtime. It didn't matter if there was a hand in his face, two defenders on him or contact as he was shooting, everything Hewitt shot seemingly found the bottom of the net. "He was making some very difficult shots. We tried different guys to defend them and he just couldn't miss," Swesey said. "He made some threes, he took it to the hole, he got to the foul line. He did it all." "That's back-to-back nights of him doing this. Early on, the shot wasn't falling and I told him not to worry about it. We knew we were gonna get the looks," Christian Brothers coach Jerome Brown said of Hewitt. "We knew we had to play hard, play smart, play together and play for each other. We trust that guys like him are gonna knock them down and he was able to do that for us." The game began to turn in the Falcons' favor when they cut Placer's deficit to four in the first two minutes of the fourth quarter. Every time Placer hit a big shot, the Falcons responded with one of their own. Brown said he felt Christian Brothers' difficult schedule had it ready to close out a tough game on the road. "We've been battle tested all year. This team is built for resiliency," Brown said. "We knew Placer was going to shoot well here tonight because it's their home gym with a good crowd and band. We knew that if we could cut the lead down to about six or eight it's anybody's ballgame." Placer started the night shooting the ball well, as Kobe Espina sank two 3-pointers in the first quarter. Emmett Rose was hitting the outside shot in the second quarter, scoring 13 of his 16 points to help Placer build its lead to 12 at the half. "Kobe's been fantastic the entire year. He was very consistent for pretty much every game he played and there's a couple times he was injured and he would just fight through it and you wouldn't even know he's banged up," Swesey said. "Emmett's a great shooter. We've known that forever. We just tell them to shoot when he goes in the game. He kept making them and the crowd was going wild. I was very happy for him to get that experience." Christian Brothers (18-12) earned a bid to the CIF NorCal Regional Tournament with the win and hit the road again Monday to take on No. 2 West Park (23-6) in the semifinals. The Panthers beat No. 7 Manteca 51-47 Friday night. Placer's season ended at 25-5, and while it was a heartbreaking conclusion, Swesey said he is proud of what the Hillmen accomplished. "This was just a special group of seniors and they all played their butts off the entire year. They are quality kids, they played hard. I've never had to get on them for practice for effort. They brought it every day and they wanted to get better," Swesey said. "You can't ask for better kids and we're really gonna miss them." The winner of Monday's semifinal will face either No. 1 Sacramento or No. 4 Central Catholic on Wednesday for the D-III championship at Golden 1 Center.