Natomas boys basketball wins thriller but wants more. ‘Mission is always Golden 1’
Brian McKenzie’s voice was hoarse. It was barely there, a loud whisper, and such is the life of a high school basketball coach.
McKenzie is in charge of the Natomas Nighthawks, a New York-raised coach who now calls Sacramento home. He is big on accountability and game-time execution. He embraces members of his team as family, like sons, and that includes the periodic glare if a screen of a player is missed, or a 360 spin. He earned The Sacramento Bee’s Coach of the Year honors in 2023-24 for leading the young, upstart Nighthawks to the CIF Northern California Regional semifinals.
So imagine the angst and then joy of Wednesday night for the coach. Natomas competed to the final whistle to topple rival Casa Roble of Orangevale, 56-54, to capture a share of the Golden Empire League championship and to serve notice the Nighthawks will be a formidable foe in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV playoffs that start next week.
McKenzie ran the full emotional gamut against a Casa team that edged the Nighthawks by 2 points earlier this season and by a hair in last season’s section Division IV title game at Golden 1 Center.
On Wednesday, there were 13 lead changes and eight ties, and, fittingly, it came down to the final seconds. Manno Jenkins scored inside after a head fake with 4.1 seconds remaining, and Casa Roble wasn’t able to get off a clean shot as the Nighthawks celebrated.
“Oh, man,” McKenzie said afterward with deep sighs. “Why didn’t I call a timeout on the last play? I trust my guys. We’ve been here a lot (with big games). I wanted Manno to have his moment. He’s been the blood, sweat and tears of this program.”
A four-year varsity player and one of the greatest hoops talents at a school that opened in 1997, Jenkins has endured his ups and downs. The senior guard scored a game-high 15, and he was joyous in victory. That wasn’t the case early in the season when he missed games and the team started 1-6 amid a brutal schedule that included single-digit losses to Bee-ranked McClatchy (72-67), Inderkum (54-48), Monterey Trail (75-66), Placer (71-70) and Lincoln of Stockton (66-64).
“I’ll tell you this: I’ve been watching Manno for the last three years,” McKenzie said. “He’s had multiple bad days but when the game is on the line, I trust no one else.”
Jenkins is hardly alone in his quest to finish this season on top. He’s got a lot of help. Fellow guards Aaeron Wallace and Alfred Wilkins have been mainstay cogs in recent years, as has senior guard Diego Villanueva, who had 11 points against Casa Roble.
Two freshmen have added an extra boost to the team in forwards Marcus Harris and Aaronson Ware.
What does it all mean? This has the makings of another postseason championship team. Natomas won section crowns in this sport in 1999, 2000 and 2014, and despite nearly doing so again in each of the past two seasons, the trophy case yearns for more hardware.
A return trip to Golden 1 is priority No. 1.
“That’s the goal, the absolute goal,” McKenzie said. “The mission is always Golden 1. Where ever I am, whoever I’m working with, it’s always going to be a mindset of champions.”
Like any coach, McKenzie agonizes over playoff losses more than he celebrates them. The losses have a striking finality to them. Game over, season over.
“We’ve had a lot of tough, close losses,” the coach said. “I’ve been coaching a long time, and so this is the culmination, just being here, giving back to this community, moving out here from New York. Definitely my mission is to keep giving back, so wins like this mean a lot to all of us.”
McKenzie has been where his players strive to go: playing on scholarship in college. He did so from 2006 to 2010 at Providence, a storied NCAA Division I program in the even more storied Big East. As a 6-foot-4 guard, McKenzie competed with the ferocity of a young man who never backed down from a challenge as a product of his Brooklyn roots. He played four seasons professionally overseas and poured himself into coaching ever since.
Casa Roble was led senior guards Tariq Lofton and Ace Villegas as each scored 14 points. Senior forward Mason Pearcy had 12 for coach Nathan Gilbert, whose team also has the makings of a group that is aiming for another trip to Golden 1. Casa Roble is 22-5.
How does the D-IV field look?
There will be no rematches with Casa Roble as the Rams remain in the section’s D-IV field.
Natomas is in D-IV, and that bracket figures to be hotly contested with Liberty Ranch of Galt (21-6), Sutter (21-6), Marysville (21-6), Colfax (21-6) and West Campus of Sacramento (20-6), among others. Given the experience of the veterans on the roster and the emergence of the freshmen, this is a bracket for the taking for Natomas.
The early schedule was taxing by design, to test and push the Nighthawks (18-9). Now they have a chance to make it all pay off.
The section office will release brackets on Saturday, by 1 p.m. The opening-round out-bracket games are Tuesday. The section championships are Feb. 27-28, and the Nighthawks do not anticipate seating in the stands on those days.
“We had a rough start to the season,” McKenzie said. “We took so many losses from high-level teams, and we know who we are. We’ve been on the cusp for so long. The mission: Golden 1.”
This story was originally published February 12, 2026 at 11:45 AM.