Beyer routs Patterson in Sac-Joaquin Section boys basketball playoffs

Jaden Cobb scored eight points in a crucial two-minute stretch of the fourth quarter, helping Beyer High School pull away for an 83-60 victory over Patterson in the first round of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II boys basketball playoffs Wednesday night at Patriot Pavilion.

Sixth-seeded Beyer will travel Friday to face No. 3 Rio Linda, a 79-63 winner over No. 14 Vacaville.

The Patriots led 48-34 at halftime, but Patterson cut the deficit to single digits when Michael Moore’s slam dunk made it 60-52 with 1:05 to play in the third quarter.

Beyer (20-8) led 62-52 early in the fourth when the Tigers missed a fast-break layup . On the ensuing possession, Cobb hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give the Patriots a 13-point cushion.

“After I hit that first shot, I just kind of felt it,” said Cobb, who finished with 22 points. “I had a bunch of adrenaline going through my body.”

Brian Perry, the co-MVP of the Modesto Metro Conference who scored a game-high 25 points, sank a 3-pointer for his first points of the second half as Beyer moved to a 68-52 lead with 6:08 left in the contest.

After a Patterson timeout, Cobb drove the lane for two highlight-reel layups, plus a foul shot after the second, stretching the lead to 74-52 with just over four minutes remaining.

“It seemed like a few times we had opportunities to cut into their lead,” said Jason McCleery, who has guided the Tigers to the playoffs in each of his three seasons as coach. “But we’d miss something easy, and then we’d give up a 3 or something and took away that momentum.”

Beyer, using a full-court press, jumped out to a big lead to start the game.

“They have some good guards,” said Kyle McKim, who has guided the Patriots to 20-plus victories and playoff berths in each of his three seasons as Beyer’s coach. “We thought we might have a little bit of a quickness advantage. It’s just what we do against a lot of teams we play: We like to pressure; we like to trap; we like to play at a pace. It falls in line with what we like to do.

“To their credit, they did a great job of figuring it out in the second half, and we had to play more man.”

The Tigers hadn’t played since Feb. 10, when they closed out Western Athletic Conference action.

“We didn’t match their intensity to start and definitely got caught by surprise,” said McCleery. “But we ratcheted up the intensity in the second and third quarters,” during which Patterson outscored Beyer 40-39.

Pierre Williams did a solid defensive job on Perry, who scored 12 points in the first quarter and eight in the second but was blanked in the third.

Joe Okitukunda and Moore paced the Tigers (17-11) with 16 points apiece.

This story was originally published February 22, 2017 at 11:34 PM with the headline "Beyer routs Patterson in Sac-Joaquin Section boys basketball playoffs."