Fullerton College men’s basketball team holds off San Bernardino Valley College to reach CCCAA championship game – San Bernardino Sun

WALNUT — The San Bernardino Valley College men’s basketball team was moving full speed ahead late in the second half.

Fullerton College sophomore forward Darvelle Wyatt threw up a roadblock and halted all of the momentum the Wolverines had gained.

Wyatt scored 10 consecutive points over a span of 2 1/2 minutes and finished with 22 points in the game, as the Hornets held on for an 83-76 victory over San Bernardino Valley College in a CCCAA semifinal contest Saturday afternoon at Mt. San Antonio College.

Fullerton (30-3) squares off against City College of San Francisco (31-1) for the state championship Sunday at 1 p.m. at Mt. SAC. It will be a showdown between the teams that were seeded No. 1 in Southern California and No. 1 in Northern California, respectively, for the state championship tournament.

The Hornets had a seemingly comfortable 15-point lead with 7 minutes remaining in the game, but San Bernardino Valley College rattled off eight straight points to trim the deficit to 66-59 with 5 minutes left to play. And that’s when Wyatt made his biggest mark of the afternoon. The Etiwanda High School product hit two free throws then scored baskets on four straight possessions to get the lead up to 17.

“My brothers put me in great positions during this game and I went to finish,” said Wyatt, who made 8 of 11 shots from the field during the game.

Fullerton coach Perry Webster said no lead can be considered safe against SBVC, especially when the Wolverines start applying full-court pressure.

“Our team has great culture and toughness and togetherness,” Webster said. “So when the game starts to get a little crazy like it was there for a while, they don’t splinter. They just come back stronger. They did what I expected them to do, and that’s respond.”

Wyatt’s scoring streak wasn’t the first time Fullerton had an answer for a run by SBVC (27-6, No. 3 seed in Southern California) in Saturday’s game.

The Wolverines knocked down their first four shots of the contest and jumped out to a 9-0 lead less than 2 minutes in the game.

“We predicted that actually,” Webster said. “We told our guys that they’re probably going to come out hot, but to remember it’s a 40-minute game. We wanted to make them play 40 minutes of possession-to-possession basketball, and we started to do that.”

Fullerton answered with a 10-0 run, and another run of 12-0 midway through the first half gave the Hornets a 28-16 advantage. Leading the way for Fullerton in the first half was 6-foot-10 freshman center Joe Grahovac, who scored 12 of his 14 points before halftime.

“That was our game plan, keep pounding the ball down low,” said Grahovac, who also finished with eight boards and five assists.

SBVC did take some momentum into intermission, as an 8-1 run over the final 67 seconds of the half cut the deficit to 38-30.

But the Wolverines were unable to sustain that coming out of the locker room, as Fullerton opened up the second half with a 12-3 run to extend its lead to 15.

Shadale Knight scored 15 of his team-high 22 points in the second half, while Jason Hillard scored 10 of his 15 after the break. The duo kept alive SBVC’s chances for a comeback, but the closest the Wolverines got was 81-76 with 2 seconds remaining (on a 3-ponter by Knight).