Give it to the Compton Tarbabes—despite an 18-12 record, and losing nine of their ten games in December, they made it all the way to the CIF Division 2 championship. The magic finally wore off in the fourth quarter of a tight game against Murrieta Valley, and a string of missed free throws was too much to overcome in the 50-44 loss.
“Defensively, I thought we did well,” said Compton coach Tony Thomas. “Our offense failed us.”
Compton did their usual excellent job on defense—they held the Nighthawks to 50 points, right in line with the rest of their stellar defensive playoff performances (they’ve allowed 55, 52, and 48 points). But in those games, they scored 58, 62, and 71 points—on Saturday morning, they shot just 38%, and got only 30 points from the trio of Cliff Sims, Allan Guei, and Anthony January. Sims, a large part of the reason Compton made it to the title game, had every prep athlete’s nightmare game, shooting 3-16, and 5-14 from the line, including several missed free throws in the final minutes of the game.
It was a nervy start for both teams, as the score was just 11-9 Murrieta after the first quarter. Justin Gudger put on a show for the Nighthawks, with 21 points, 13 in the first half. By the mid-way point of the second quarter, Compton settled into their offense, and was being patient, and breaking down the Murrieta defense; even as Sims struggled, he worked hard to create for others, with four assists in the second. He and Guei boosted the Tarbabes to a 27-22 lead at halftime.
But the air in the Honda Center was as chilly as the air outside of it in the third quarter, as the Tarbabes went just 2-8 from the field, while giving up 12 to the Hawks, who started the fourth quarter with a 34-32 lead. But the Tarbabes’ defense just couldn’t produce the extra stop in the fourth quarter, as Gudger and teammate Jackson Helms kept the Hawks just out of reach. Compton didn’t take the lead until the mid-way point, when Sims hit his first field goal since the opening frame, a leaner with a man on his back that went down to give the Tarbabes a 41-40 lead. But Murrieta scored six straight to take the lead back, as Sims missed four free throws, and Guei missed another two, to keep them from closing the gap.
Sims hit a desperation three with 45 seconds on the clock to close it to 46-44, but Mark Tarabilda converted a layup and drew a blocking foul on Shelton Black, who tried heroically to take the charge. And that was all she wrote.
“I just think we started rushing at the end,” said Guei, who also said it seemed like each individual was trying to do too much. Thomas agreed. “We were one-on-one more in the second half, we got out of our game plan. We just didn’t play well down the stretch.” The free throws were particularly frustrating to Thomas because his team did such a good job of getting to the line—Sims drew four foul calls in the first foul minutes of the fourth quarter, and got Compton into the bonus with 5:03 on the clock. But the Tarbabes only got five points off seventeen free throw tries; Murrieta got 12 points off free throws, the seven-point differential proving enormous in the six-point loss for Compton.
The season hasn’t ended for Compton, though their quest to win their first section title since 1969 has—they automatically qualify for the State tournament, where they will begin play on Tuesday, most likely on the road.