Beckman boys basketball team celebrates outright PCL title with thrilling 75-67 overtime victory over Northwood

Beckman’s Tommy Feldman celebrates with students after the Patriots won the league title outright Thursday night.

Beckman’s boys basketball team captured the Pacific Coast League title outright Thursday night, but the Patriots had to work hard to do it on the road.

Beckman, which already clinched a share of the title Tuesday night, the first in school history, defeated Northwood 75-67 in overtime to lock up the outright crown. Beckman students poured onto the court at Northwood to celebrate.

To see the slide show, please click on the first photo

Northwood, the defending league champion, was hoping to share the crown.

Dylan Thoerner led Beckman (19-8, 8-2) with 25 points. Thoerner kept the Patriots hopes of an undisputed title alive when he sank a 3-pointer with five seconds remaining to tie the game 62-62 and send it into overtime.

Then, Beckman supported by its very vocal and animated student rooters outscored Northwood 13-5 in the extra session to win it.

“This was a process of a lot of hard work, a lot of months of dedication and training,” Thoerner said outside a very loud Patriots’ locker-room. “Like coach said, ‘it’s our time,’ and we showed it’s our time and we brought it and I’m so proud of our guys for the way we competed and won.”

Thoerner said the Patriots wanted to win the title outright after earning a share Tuesday (please click here to see that story).

“It was hard because we knew that they wanted a piece of it,” Thoerner said. “So we had to come out and understand we don’t want to share anything. We want it for ourselves and we came out and did that.”

Shandon Sharifi led Northwood (13-14, 6-4) with 23 points.

Amit Flint hit two free throws with 12 seconds remaining to give Northwood a 62-59 lead. Beckman Coach John Goins took the team’s final timeout and designed a play for Thoerner, who sank the 3-pointer.

“Coach ran the play and I knew I might have a look at the top of the key and I practice that shot a lot, especially with the range and my teammates set great screens for me and I was able to get wide open and knock it down and do my part,” Thoerner said.

Beckman also got strong efforts from Aaman Soma and Christopher Muller, who had 20 points each. Soma also had 12 rebounds and Muller had nine.

“We certainly had to earn it,” said Goins said. “It feels great. I’m so happy they were able to experience that. They were able to set a goal. Being league champions is a testament to them staying focused and being really mature and disciplined. It has nothing to with me. I’m so happy they got to see this and they got to be on the floor when everybody was rushing in because they will remember that the rest of their lives.”

Flint added 14 points for Northwood, which as the second place finisher is also expected to advance to the CIF playoffs.

“I thought we came out and fought the entire way,” said Northwood Coach Yousof Etemadi, who has been filling in for Coach Tim O’Brien while he recovers. “I thought we did everything we were supposed to do. Obviously we were a little short-handed tonight but I thought our guys were really relentless and played really hard and I’m proud of the way they worked tonight.”

Northwood was without one of its top scorers and rebounders Seth Locke and another starter Trent Harper (both for unspecified reasons) according to Etemadi.

-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com