Whitney Wildcats muscle past Granite Bay Grizzlies to win Division II section championship

The Whitney Wildcats looked inward after losing their fifth straight game in late January.

The loss came on the road against rival Granite Bay following four consecutive defeats to tough Sierra Foothill League opponents and Rio Americano, which ended up earning the No. 1 seed in the the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II playoffs.

Whitney’s head basketball coach and athletic director Nick French looked at his senior-laden team and laid it on the line in the locker room afterwards. It was midway through the season and their goals were still in front of them despite the five-game losing streak.

“It was really just baring my soul to them,” French said Friday night in the bowels of Golden 1 Center. “It’s one of those things where (the players) worked so hard every day. When we have practice, there were no (bad) attitudes. Everybody’s there on time. Everybody works hard. It’s the one team I’ve ever had where we didn’t have to deal with that kind of stuff.”

French continued: “I said, ‘Look, man, I’m going to keep fighting for you if you want to keep to fighting for me and fighting for us.’”

The players responded with six wins in seven games, including three in the playoffs as the No. 7 seed in the 16-team bracket. The fight back culminated Friday with a section championship victory, the second in school history. The Wildcats won the Division II title with a 61-56 triumph over Granite Bay, the same team that handed them their fifth consecutive lose back in January.

After the final horn, the players celebrated on the court at Golden 1 Center and chanted “light the beam” in the same building where the Sacramento Kings shoot a giant purple laser into the sky to signal victory.

“This is what we’ve been doing the last two or three weeks,” French said. “Whenever these guys get some adversity, these guys just really rally around each other and just willed us (to win).”

It was a wild game that included 11 ties and 15 lead changes. Yaqub Mir, Granite Bay’s standout point guard who is headed to UC San Diego, scored 27 points, accounting for nearly half of the Grizzlies’ total, while Whitney won with rebounding and balanced scoring up and down the lineup.

The Wildcats, who have one of the tallest rosters in the area, won the rebounding battle, 45-25, and prevented anyone outside of Mir from scoring more than 10 points.

Mir dazzled, hitting five 3s, including two from NBA distance.

“He’s a bucket,” French said. “He’s a college basketball player. When you come to these arenas and play, it’s tough to shoot. And you watch that kid and he’s hitting shots from the logo.”

But Whitney’s Ely Willis (15 points), Elijah Samdahl (11) and Matt Schroeder (11) were too much. The game was tied at 41 heading into the fourth quarter and then the Wildcats outscored the Grizzlies 20-15 over the last eight minutes.

Big man Derek Lamb had the defensive play of the game when he blocked a shot with 20 seconds left after a slick pass from Mir as Granite Bay was trying to trim a three-point lead to two. A pair of free throws eventually sealed it.

Lamb had a game-high eight rebounds, spearheading the team’s effort to set the tone on the glass.

“The biggest thing we gotta do to win this game is win that rebounding battle,” Lamb said. “I knew if we won that rebounding battle that we would win this game, and that was the goal. I was saying it to myself when I went to bed last night. I was saying it when we woke up.”

The Wildcats are led by a group of seniors French said carried the team throughout the year. Guard Matt Schroeder, Samdahl, Jason Hurtado and John Dailey all made enough plays down the stretch to prevent Mir from nearly winning the championship game single-handedly. Willis, who led the team in scoring Friday, is only a sophomore who figures to carry an even greater load going forward.

“Every time I challenged them, they responded,” French said.

But the section title doesn’t mean the season is over. Whitney and Granite Bay will continue into the Nor Cal playoffs where they will await their opponents in the coming days.

“You can’t get satisfied with this,” Dailey said. “This is awesome, winning this with these guys, definitely a sweet moment. ... We come to work at practice every single day 100% and that’s what we’re going to come to do Monday when we practice. And we’ll see who we play.”