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Sports

Loma Linda Learns Playoff Fate After Tough Loss

The boys basketball team will travel to face St. Genevieve in the opening round Wednesday.

The Loma Linda boys’ varsity basketball team will make a playoff appearance this week, despite falling in last week's season finale.

The Roadrunners fell to Linfield Christian 42-39 Thursday, but the loss did not affect their fourth-place standing in the Ambassador League. Having captured the last of the playoff slots Loma Linda will compete in the CIF playoffs on Wednesday.

“You hate to lose those nail biters, but they’re fun to be in,” said LLA head coach Jeremy Claridge.

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Loma Linda discovered its playoff fate Sunday afternoon. The Roadrunners drew 13th-seeded St. Genevieve High School of Panorama City for Wednesday's first round of the CIF-Southern Section playoffs. The game will start at 7 p.m.

Sitting in fourth place in the Ambassador League, Claridge said Thursday he expected to play a top seated team on the road.

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“If you don’t make yourself look good on paper then you have to go play some tough teams. But it will be fun and it will be a good experience for us,” Claridge said.

Thursday, Loma Linda led the Linfield Tigers at the end of the first quarter despite the fact that their shooting guard and leading scorer, junior Dante Thompson, was benched for poor grades.

“This week we definitely could have used him because we lost two games that were very winnable and he’s a huge player that makes a big difference for us,” Claridge said.

However, Linfield took the lead in the first three minutes of the second quarter and until the end of the third quarter Loma Linda gave them no reason to look back.

“They defend well and that’s their biggest strength, and they have a lot because they’re a good team … There’s a reason why shots have a tough time going down,” Claridge said.

The Tigers led 22-16 at the end of the first half, but by the end of the third quarter Loma Linda had cut that three-basket lead down to two.

The Roadrunners opened the final quarter of play trailing 31-27. With a dogged determination the Roadrunners crawled to within a point of the Tigers, 38-37, with just under two minutes left to play. However, a fade away shot and a counter attack that left a Tiger wide open under the basket put Linfield back up 42-37 with less than one minute on the game clock.

Senior center Jose Jana gave the Roadrunners a chance to win the game with a successful lay up for a 42-39 game. Senior point guard Tim Giang stole the ball off the inbounded pass and drew an intentional foul, but he was unable to sink either of his free throws.

However, unable to snag offensive rebounds all night against the Tigers’ taller squad, Loma Linda’s heated pursuit put them in possession of three in a row. However, senior shooting guard Santhush Weerasinghe, Jana and Giang could not put the pall through the hoop.

Offensive rebounding proved to be one of the deciding factors in Thursday’s game. Linfield earned second and third chance opportunities repeatedly throughout the night.

“They killed us on the glass,” Claridge said. “I thought our guards did a good job in the post-up situation … but on the offensive rebounds they gave themselves so many extra opportunities and that’s tough to keep coming back from. You may get one stop or two, but more is pretty brutal.”

In Thursday’s match up the Roadrunners’ offense was led by sophomore center Keith Stewart with eight points. Giang, Jana and Lawrence all had six points.

The Roadrunner’s offense was anchored this season by the team’s point leader Thompson and Giang, and junior power forward Chris Lawrence, who led the team in rebounds.

Thompson is expected to return for the playoff game provided he’s taken the week to improve his grades.

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