Beyer boys bounced out of playoffs by Grant

The Beyer High boys basketball team shuffled into the offseason, some with their heads buried in a towel or jersey.

With the booming sound of the Grant High School drumline filling the gym and dancers stepping in unison across the floor and the visiting bleachers, the takeover was complete.

The 12th-seeded Pacers made themselves at home behind enemy lines on Wednesday evening, shaking up the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II tournament with an 80-72 victory over the Patriots.

Seniors Ryan Frakes and Tanner Gentry scored 19 and 17 points, respectively, in their final game, but it wasn’t enough to carry the battle-hardened fifth seed.

Cameron Davis canned eight three-pointers and finished with a game-high 26 points, TreShon Smoots-Jones tallied 20, and forward Joshuah Sells cleaned up what few mistakes the Pacers made.

Sells had just four points, but pulled down 15 rebounds. He was at his best on the offensive glass with eight rebounds, including four in the first quarter.

“I don’t think the offense was the biggest problem. I think we needed to get nastier on the boards. We gave them way too many second chances,” Beyer coach Kyle McKim said. “They were a lot more physical than us for the first half to three quarters of the game. They had a higher level of physicality than us, and won a lot of loose balls, 50-50s and rebounds.”

Grant (13-15) advances to the quarterfinal round, where it will face Whitney of Rocklin on Thursday. The Wildcats held off No. 13 Davis, 85-72.

The Pacers entered the postseason with a sub-.500 record and losses in four of their last five games, but played with the confidence and speed of a top seed.

They were a vastly different team than the Patriots had scouted at the McDonald’s Classic in Stockton in December. Grant played without a starter in that tournament.

“That’s a good team over there. Hats off to them. They shot the ball well. They played tenacious on defense and they rebounded,” McKim said. “That’s one of the best teams we’ve played all year. They can play. If you can hang with Jesuit and the teams they’ve hung with and beat, we knew they were legit. They’ve improved a lot since the beginning of the season.”

Davis and Smoots-Jones shouldered the scoring load, combining for 23 first-half points. Davis knocked down three treys in the opening three minutes to give Grant an 11-2 advantage.

The Pacers pulled away with a 7-1 run to start the second quarter. Davis started the surge with his fourth three-pointer of the first half. When Smoots-Jones stopped on a dime and elevated for a jump shot from the top of the arc, McKim had seen enough.

He called for a timeout, hoping to jump-start the Patriots from their slumber.

The game was already too far gone.

Grant stretched its lead to 38-27 at the intermission and led by as many as 21 in the third quarter.

McKim took responsibility for the slow start. The Patriots began in a zone defense, daring Davis and Smoots-Jones to beat them from the perimeter.

Grant had 11 three-pointers.

Whoops.

“It was a bad decision on my part to come out in zone. The refs let us play real physical, which is what you expect in playoff basketball,” McKim said. “We probably should have come out a little more aggressive. Playing zone doesn’t put you in an aggressive mindset.

“We probably could have had a better game plan. We did the best with the film we saw. We made some adjustments, but a little too late.”

Beyer closed with a flurry, outscoring Grant 27-17 in the fourth quarter. Frakes had eight points, including two three-pointers, and Gentry and Jaden Cobb hit back-to-back treys to narrow the gap to eight with less than a minute left.

The Patriots had survived a rigorous non-conference schedule and the loss of star point guard Georgie Dancer (knee), but had no answer for Grant’s athleticism.

“I don’t want to make the excuse of what we lost, but to run off six games in a row with what we didn’t have and to play as hard as we did, I’m proud of them for that,” McKim said.

The future is bright for the Patriots, whose summer AAU team – the Modesto Revolution – has produced a young crop of talent.

McKim will return six players from his regular rotation: freshman point guard Dom Dancer; sophomore point guard Ben Polack; junior shooting guards Brian Perry and DeAngelo Dancer; junior forward Dylan Weltmer; and Cobb, a junior point guard.

Dom Dancer had 15 points in his playoff debut, while the sharpshooting Perry was held to nine points without a three-pointer.

The junior varsity team went 20-3 and will promote size, beefing up Beyer’s frontcourt.

“I’m excited for the future. We’re going to jump into AAU right away and I’ll probably have guys in the weight room tomorrow,” McKim said. “We can’t feel sorry for ourselves.”

This story was originally published February 24, 2016 at 10:46 PM with the headline "Beyer boys bounced out of playoffs by Grant."