El Camino's one-for-all approach on display in D-III title win

The fourth-quarter play symbolized how far the El Camino High School boys basketball program has come this season.

After a Sacramento High turnover in Friday's Sac-Joaquin Section Division III championship game at Arco Arena, the Eagles' Juawnn Springfield took off for an easy breakaway.

But instead of taking the ball to the basket, he stopped near the top of the key, pivoted and passed to a trailing Kyle Baxter. Baxter took the gift and dunked it, much to the delight of El Camino's huge and raucous rooting section as the Eagles sprinted past the Dragons 89-76.

"He could have scored that," El Camino coach Justin Clymo said of the junior guard. "But instead he gives it up so someone else can be successful. This win was possible because of the chemistry and the unity we were able to develop during the course of the year."

If wasn't that way early in the season when they lost 67-65 to the top-ranked Dragons in the Dec. 6 Maita Classic at Sheldon.

"The last time we played these guys, we were up by eight with 2 1/2 minutes to go, and we took four terrible, selfish shots," he said.

Then Clymo and Baxter, one of his senior leaders, visited Menlo College and men's coach Brandon Laird, which proved enlightening. Laird, a former Eagles standout, played at UC Davis when Clymo was an assistant to Bob Williams.

"We go into the locker room, and the feeling of unity and commitment is so good that we wanted to bring it back and show that it was OK to be unselfish," Clymo said. "You have a guy like Kyle Baxter … he's taken a back seat to other guys during the season by being unselfish, and it's contagious."

Friday night at Arco, however, Baxter was in the driver's seat in helping lead the Eagles to their first boys section basketball championship since 1989.

The 6-foot-7 beanpole had 27 points on 13-of-15 shooting from the field as the Eagles climbed to 25-5 and earned a Northern California Regional home game Tuesday. Section championship game records were set for most combined points and most second-half points by a team (59 by El Camino).

But indicative of Clymo's emphasis on team, he brought unsung seniors Tyler Brown and David Strasburg to an impromptu postgame news conference. The duo played a combined 11 minutes and had four points.

"David is a team captain, and he carries the load as far as being the leader," Clymo said. "Tyler got cut his freshman and sophomore years and was our 15th man last season. Now he starts for us. He's our glue because he's a guy who doesn't need the ball but works so hard."

Falcons appreciate new-look division – Forest Lake Christian's David Thomas admitted he was one happy coach when section officials decided to tweak Division V enrollment this season.

Instead of 400 students as the cutoff, they made it a maximum of 300, bumping perennial powers Modesto Christian and Capital Christian, the D-V section finalists the past five years, into D-IV.

"Praise the Lord," Thomas said in jest Friday at the postgame news conference after his team beat Brookside Christian of Stockton at Arco in the final. "That opened the door for us and all the D-V schools. All of us were excited about it."

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