By Matt Hickman / Sierra Vista Herald
DOUGLAS — However many dominoes needed to align just perfectly for the Cochise Apaches to upset the College of Southern Idaho in Saturday night’s NJCAA District 1 championship game, all of them fell except one.
And even it teetered and wobbled.
Cochise point guard Arell Hennings took the inbounds pass with 3.5 seconds to go and on the run, 30 feet from the basket, ducked under two Golden Eagles flying by and sent one at the rim that had eyes, but caromed off the left side as time expired, allowing the nation’s eighth-ranked team to escape with a 65-63 win.
“I definitely thought it was going to drop, but that’s how the game goes, it was a good look — we played well enough to win,” Hennings said. “In my mind, I had myself passing, but I didn’t want us to not get a shot.”
The last two points of 24 on the night for First-team All-America Fredrick Edmond, were the easiest, as he got lost behind the Apaches’ triangle-and-two for a layup that proved to be the game winner. On the previous trip, Cochise had a chance to take the lead, but Brayon Blake’s shot in the post missed the mark with 15 seconds to play.
“That was one of the funnest games I’ve ever been involved in — great crowd and our guys really tried their butts off,” Cochise head coach Jerry Carrillo said. “We’re not going to play anybody better than CSI, so I think it’s great if we can go have a week of practice, and get on the bus for Hutch.”
By virtue of winning their region titles earlier in the week, both teams had already punched their tickets for the 24-team national tournament in Hutchinson, Kan. March 16-21. Seedings will be released Tuesday and the Apaches will hit the road Saturday.
It’s Cochise’s first trip there in 14 years.
Cochise went in a heavy underdog against the 31-2 Region 18 champions in no small part because of the Eagles’ long and athletic full-court pressure.
But the Apaches didn’t just survive the CSI press, they weren’t even nicked, turning the ball over not a single time against it.
“That’s why we were able to stay close,” Carrillo said. “Hat’s off to Arell and Daniel (Hernandez) for not panicking.”
“We weren’t scared,” Hennings said of the CSI press. “We just knew it was a challenge we haven’t faced all year.”
CSI used a 12-0 run to go on top 12-3 early, but Cochise weathered the knockout try and fought back, thanks in large part to the shooting of reserve guard Justin Jones, who buried three 3-pointers in three minutes to cut it to 17-16, and hit a fourth bomb at the 2:08 mark to pull the Apaches to within 30-29 with 2:08 to go before halftime. Cochise took a 34-30 lead to the break.
“We know he can do it, it’s just we’re so guard-heavy, trying to find him minutes is hard,” Carrillo said of Jones, who hit a fifth three four minutes into the second half. “He took advantage of his minutes.”
Cochise took its largest lead of the night at 47-42 when sophomore Jordan Martin nailed a three, and matched that bulge five-and-a-half minutes later when Daniel Hernandez scored a three-point play on a nifty up-and-under baseline drive to make it 56-51 with 6:34 to play.
Hernandez led Cochise for the third straight game with 17 points.
CSI fought back to tie it on a 3-point play by 6-foot-10 Pape Diatta with 3:07 to go as the pace quickened and points became hard to come by.
Blake put the Apaches back up 63-60 with a 3-point play on a post move at 1:40. Up 63-61 with less than a minute to go, Cochise nearly forced a shot clock violation, but a foul 30 feet from the basket sent Diatta to the line for two that tied it with 46 seconds left.
Behind Hernandez’s 17 and Jones’ 15, Martin scored nine and Blake and Hennings seven apiece for Cochise, while Diatta finished with 13 and Armond Davis nine for CSI.