Cambridge College Times
September 14, 2013
Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
Knights slay St. George to take UPSA Cup
By David R. Boldt
Special to the Times
SANTA CRUZ – The Cambridge College boys basketball team sent out a warning
to all parts of Bolivia this past Tuesday with an impressive 67-44 defeat of a
formidable St. George team to win the UPSA Cup.
The message: Cambridge will be a force to be reckoned with in the pending
plurinacional championship tournament.
Two aspects of the Knights’ victory, which took place in the UPSA coliseum
and is tantamount to winning the city championship, stood out. First, it was
accomplished with such apparent ease. Never trailing, the Big Red team moved out
to 10-, 20-, and ultimately 30-point margins, before easing up on the gas in the final
period as Coach Victor Coronado substituted freely.
Second, the St. George team was no pushover. They had three talented big men
in Jorge Figueroa, Ricardo Von, and Junior Maldonado, ably assisted by a couple of
adroit ball handlers in Luis Benitez and Enzo Melgar.
They were skilled shooters – at least when they weren’t being bullied by the
grabbing, jabbing, stick-like-glue Cambridge defense – and showed it by hitting 19
of 24 foul shots, an impressive 80 percent. (Cambridge was none too shabby in the
foul shooting department either, hitting 12 of 15.)
Dragons suppress Mercado, Hurtado
And the St. George defense virtually shut down two of Cambridge’s most
formidable offensive weapons. The Knights two-meter-tall sophomore center Luis
Mercado found himself forced to carry around at least two of St. George’s big men
any time he got near the basket, and was held to three points on foul shots in the
first half.
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(You can’t keep a good man down forever, though. Mercado tallied four field
goals in the second half, two of them slam dunks off steals. He finished the day with
eleven points.)
St. George also more or less put a stop to Andres Hurtado’s crash-and-burn style
of offense as they swarmed on him, twice stripping him of the ball as he tried to
rumble through toward the basket as is his custom. Hurtado was held to six points in
the game, an unusually low total for him.
Roca, Paniagua come up big
But containing the Cambridge offense was like trying to stuff 10 kilos of
something into a five-kilo bag. With Mercado drawing double coverage there was
no stopping forward Gustavo Roca, who time and again went hurtling basketward
from his position on the left-hand side, then acrobatically tossing in lay-ups and
hooks. Roca led all scorers in the game with 22 points.
The Big Red’s second biggest offensive threat was an opportunistic Juan Carlos
Paniagua, who tallied 13 points.
St. George coach M. Beramendi was fully aware of what he was up against –
Cambridge had beaten his team handily earlier in the season – and was apparently
trying every psychological trick in the book.
His team was very slow coming onto the court for the opening tap-off, ignoring
several urgent summonses whistled by the referees, and fearlessly risking what
would have been an unusual game-opening technical foul.
But if he was hoping Cambridge would get the jitters during the delay, as they
stood around waiting for their opponents to break out of their huddle, it didn’t work.
The Knights maintained their characteristic “don’t worry, be happy” demeanor,
laughing and joking with another.
A smooth start for Knights
They continued looking loose and relaxed as play commenced. Paniagua
quickly scored twice, and the Big Red moved out to a 9-0 nothing lead in the
opening minutes. By the end of the first quarter they had a 19-4 advantage -- and
control of the game.
With Roca and Paniagua leading the way, and bolstered by three-pointers from
Santiago Hurtado and Alejandro Barrancos, the Knights extended their lead to 38-15
at the half-time break.
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While the Knights offense was impressive, the defense was even more so. The
Dragons may have been able to shut down Mercado as an offensive threat during the
first half, he more than paid the opposition back on defense, delivering several inyour-face blocks that not only stopped potential scores cold, but also seemed to
deflate St. George’s morale.
But everyone in a red uniform was doing their part. St. George, for example,
tried to take advantage of the fact that Figueroa was not only a big man under the
boards, he was also (as he showed during warm-ups and in swishing home most of
his foul shots) a deadly outside shooter.
Stopping a sharpshooter
To take advantage of this, the Dragons had a play where Figueroa went in
toward the basket, then reversed and sprinted back outside, where he received the
ball for what he clearly hoped would be an unharassed shot from three-point land.
And it worked – once. Even then he was pressured, and subsequently whenever
he tried the ploy some defender would have a hand in his face spoiling his aim.
The second half was something of an anti-climax. The huge Cambridge,
contingent – the school had bused in the entire secondary school to root for the
Knights – found it hard to maintain concentration on the court as Cambridge cruised
along with a hefty lead.
There was a flash of excitement at the beginning of the fourth and final period
as eighth grader Santiago Hurtado, in rapid order, hit two long shots from the left
corner, one accounting for his second three-pointer of the afternoon.
Later in the quarter St. George’s starters showed that they could hold their own
against the Cambridge second-stringers, but play became sloppy and foul-prone. St.
George’s last nine points came on free throws.
There was plenty of joy among the Cambridge fans as the team accepted its
trophy, ceremonially cut down the strings from one of the baskets (they badly
needed replacing anyway), and took a victory lap or two around the coliseum.
The next step for the Knights in the national tournament will be a regional
qualifying round in Camiri at the beginning of October. (They have passed
undefeated through two elimination rounds in the city of Santa Cruz.)
If the team can place first or second in Camiri they will move on to the
plurinacional championships to be held in La Paz at a date yet to be determined.
Eighteen teams, two from each department, will compete there for national honors.
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Cambridge got to the Final Eighteen last year, when the tournament was held in
Oruro, and was 2-2 in its group, though seriously affected by the altitude. That was
not good enough, however, to advance to the final four in the tournament, which
was ultimately won by a team from Tarija, where basketball is virtually the civic
sport.
A bright outlook
But Cambridge can be optimistic as it looks ahead to these final tests. This
year’s team is identical to last year’s team, except that the players are a whole year
older (and still mostly 10th and 11th graders). Most of them have been playing
together for five years, as junior varsity and varsity players, and have had
considerable success.
The team handily won the Santa Cruz Interscholastic League championship prior
to Cambridge’s being evicted from that League, apparently for twice beating
International School by over 100 points. This year marked the second year in a row
the Knights have won the UPSA Cup, and they have won the Santa Cruz club
championship for 17-and-under teams for four years in a row.
Cambridge will also have a number of track and swimming stars competing in
plurinacional championships.
Playing for the Knights in the UPSA Cup championship were Roca (22 points),
Paniagua (13), Mercado (11), Santiago Hurtado (8), Andres Hurtado (6), Barrancos
(3), Paul Blades (2), Masayoshi Ueno (2), and Nando Boller.
For St. George: Figueroa (16 points), Von (9), Melgar (7), Alvaro Tapia (4),
Junior Maldonado (4), Benitez (2), Adrian Escobar (2), and Nicolas Suarez.
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