Portola boys basketball team remains atop PCL with victory in last second over Beckman

Portola players warm up during a game earlier this season. (Photo: OC Sports Zone, Tim Burt).

Portola’s boys basketball team remained atop the Pacific Coast League standings with a 57-55 victory over Beckman Tuesday night.

“It was an exciting game from a fan standpoint, but from a coach’s perspective, it was another story,” said Portola Coach Brian Smith.

Portola (10-5, 4-0) had a great first quarter, Smith said, when it moved out to a 21-9 lead.

“And then they outscored us the rest of the game, so I wasn’t too thrilled about that. Eleven players played and 10 scored for us,” he said.

Adrian Bravo made two free throws with less than one second left to lift the Bulldogs to the victory. Bravo led Portola with 12 points, all off the bench. Makai Brown had eight points, Jayden Villanueva, Ryan Chu, Ryan Jung and Devin Daniel all had six points for the Bulldogs.

“We didn’t play a strong first half and needed to play catch up the whole time, which is never a good position to be in,” said Beckman Coach John Goins. “We struggled with foul trouble which didn’t help, and losing Dowon Kim early in the fourth threatened to hurt our momentum, but the boys hung in there and kept pushing.

“With the game tied and clock running put, we unfortunately had the shooting foul call on us during an offensive put back with 0.6 seconds left putting them on the line to win it. I wish the two teams could have decided it in the four-minute overtime period instead of how it ended, but hopefully the game is a step in the right direction for us and we use it as a positive for the rest of league. 

Beckman (6-14, 2-3) was led by Kai Garcia, who scored 18 points; Kim, who had 17 points and Abhi Archarya, who had 14 points.

Beckman hosts Laguna Hills Thursday night while Portola will meet University (3-1 in league) Monday at 3 p.m. at University in a makeup game from Dec. 16. The Bulldogs also play Woodbridge on Monday, Jan. 24.

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