Willow Glen rolls past Los Gatos, advances to NorCal D-III semifinals
SAN JOSE — This Willow Glen boys basketball team doesn’t clobber you over the head with tangibles. No one over 6-2, no big dunkers, no five-star athletes. All this team does is win.
The Rams wrote another chapter in a story for the ages Thursday with a 59-48 win over Los Gatos in the CIF Northern California Division III quarterfinals, a game that was played in front of a high-decibel, capacity crowd on campus.
Willow Glen, now 26-2, gets to play another home game Saturday in the NorCal semifinals against Cornerstone Christian. Somehow this group of average-looking guys is one win away from playing in a NorCal final, two wins away from playing for a state championship.
“We don’t pass the eye test and we take a lot of pride in that,” Willow Glen coach Patrick Judge said. “We don’t need to. If you look at us on film we’re not very big, we’re not very physically imposing, we don’t have that superstar. We have a team. One family, one team, one goal, one legacy.”
Trailing 11-9 after one quarter, the Rams came out on fire to begin the second quarter, going on a 19-2 run, juicing the tempo, knocking down 3-pointers and forcing turnovers.They hit four 3s in one 14-0 blitz as the score went from 14-13 to 28-13.
Wyatt Ahlbrand made four 3-pointers in the first half and then scored on a layup off halfcourt motion and knocked down another 3 to start the second half as Willow Glen went up 33-16.
“We don’t care about the way we look,” Ahlbrand said. “We know there’s going to be teams bigger and stronger than us. But on any given night any team can beat any team. It’s all about the intangibles. It’s not about the height, the size, the athletes. We don’t care about that.”
“Wyatt’s such an amazing, not only player but leader,” Judge said. “Never too high, never too low, incredibly consistent. Shows up every day. He’s put in so much work to get to where he is today.”
Point guard Brayden Gumabo scored 18, Ahlbrand had 17, Caiden Morefield 11 and sophomore Miles Ingram scored 9 on three 3s. Willow Glen made 10 3s and forced 19 turnovers.
“That’s what we do,” Gumabo said. “That’s our culture. We pride ourselves on our defense. We’re electric. We shoot the ball, we drive to the basket, we score on all levels. We’re rolling. The only people who can stop us are ourselves.”
Freshman point guard Milos Grabovac led Los Gatos (22-7) with 11 points. Dionysis Maroudas scored 10.
“We ran into a buzzsaw,” said Los Gatos coach Nick Ward, a Willow Glen graduate, class of 2004. “They hit shots, they executed. It’s not going to take away how we feel about this group, how we feel about this season. The guys maxed out. It hurts, it burns, but that’s because you know you gave it your all for the last seven months.”