RIVERSIDE — It was late Friday night but the bank was still open.
Senior Garrett Pickens banked in the game-winning 3-pointer with 0.9 seconds remaining as Ramona defeated Placentia Valencia 60-57 on Friday night in a CIF Southern Section Division 6 semifinal playoff game.
“I know I’m just glad to be here,” Pickens said. “The bank was open, yes sir.”
Pickens finished with a game-high 19 points and eight assists as Ramona held on despite sophomore C.J. Margain fouling out in the fourth quarter.
The Rams (27-5 overall) move on to play the Laguna Hills next weekend in the championship game. It will be the second consecutive section final appearance in just two seasons for second-year coach Eric Tabatabai.
“We’ve talked about it since last year,” Tabatabai said. “Like, we wanted a second chance. They’ve put in a lot of work all year and we’re lucky enough to be getting that second opportunity.”
Senior Gautham Venguswamy was 6 of 11 from the field for 17 points, but Valencia (17-15) had its four-game winning streak snapped. The Tigers trailed by as many as 10 points early in the fourth quarter and managed to tie the game with less than 90 seconds left before senior David Jung missed a contested layup to take the lead.
After a timeout, Ramona ran a high screen-and-roll play and Pickens nearly turned the ball over, but junior Cary Moore grabbed the ball and tossed it back to Pickens.
From just beyond the left arc, Pickens heaved the ball off the backboard and through the cylinder as the shot clock expired.
“He told me to just throw it up,” Pickens said. “It was always falling in.”
Valencia held an early 6-0 lead on back-to-back 3-pointers by Jung and junior Izan Hsu, but shots stopped falling and the Tigers were just 8 for 27 from the field in the first half.
“I’ll be honest, nobody expected us to be here,” Valencia coach Danny Ortega said. “Our boys gelled, we stuck together and we got through the first round and just said, ‘You know what? Let’s just have a one-game-at-a-time mindset and it almost got us to the final.”
Moore scored nine of his 17 points in the first quarter as Ramona regained the lead and held it until late in the third quarter when Hsu showed up again with a pair of mid-range jump shots and a 3-pointer to tie the game.
Moore and sophomore Joseph Gutierrez sank 3s at the end of the third quarter to push the lead back out to six points entering the fourth but Valencia did not go away. Venguswamy kept getting inside and to the free-throw line, and Jung tied the game with a 3 from the corner with 1 minute, 20 seconds to play.
Ramona junior J.J. Tibbels shook a defender for an easy layup on a fast break with a minute left before Valencia senior Ronald Correa’s short jumper tied it again at 57-57. A turnover by Pickens gave the ball away but Jung’s missed layup with 14.6 seconds on the clock put it back in Pickens’ hands for the final play.
Pickens finished 7 for 20 from the field (1 for 6 from 3-point range) and 5 for 8 from the free throw line with five rebounds, two steals and one block. Margain had 10 points, six rebounds and three blocks, and Moore added eight rebounds, three steals and one block.
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