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Sports

JSerra Rallies to Defeat La Puente in Overtime, 72-66

Trenton Coggins scores a game-high 39 points to help Lions advance to quarterfinals of CIF Southern Section Division 4A basketball playoffs.

Anything can happen in the postseason.

The JSerra boys basketball team almost learned that lesson the hard way during the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division 4 playoffs Friday night at home, as an undersized La Puente squad gave the Lions all they could handle before JSerra finally took over down the stretch and put the contest away in overtime, 72-66.

Although Trenton Coggins was nothing short of brilliant for the Lions, scoring a game-high 39 points, which included a trio of three-pointers and a 16-for-16 performance at the free throw line, JSerra relied too heavily on the senior shooting guard in the first half and found themselves down big early.

Coggins scored 17 of the Lions' 24 first-half points, seven of which came with under a minute left, after La Puente had raced to a 28-17 lead.

The Warriors held advantages in both the turnover and rebounding categories and dominated the first 16 minutes from whistle to whistle, but Coggins' last-minute answer left the Lions down by only six at 30-24 heading into the locker room.

"We underestimated them, definitely," Coggins said of La Puente. "We were expected to come in and blow them out. But, we had to stick together as a team and eventually we came back and got it done."

Coggins sparked the second-half comeback midway through the third quarter after Devon Pflueger sent in a putback that made it 37-31. Coggins stole the ball at midcourt and put back his own miss at the other end, then he nailed a jumper before Johnny Marks' putback with 3:39 left knotted the score at 37.

Just as soon as the Lions had clawed back into it, however, they stung themselves again when Derek Tademy was called for a technical foul after harming Javier Lopez on a three-point attempt and drawing a whistle.

JSerra fouled La Puente shooters behind the arc on three different occasions, the second of which resulted in a five-point swing. With momentum recaptured, the Warriors' Marco Ponce drilled a triple at the buzzer and La Puente took a 48-41 lead into the final frame.

"The kids are high school kids, so they look at the other team, see that they're not that big, and they think they should dominate them," JSerra coach Joedy Gardner said. "At the beginning, [La Puente] was a little nervous, then all of a sudden they realized they could play with [us]. That gave them a boost of energy, and we probably played the worst half we have all year. So thank goodness there are two halves."

Gardner said his message to the Lions at halftime was simple: If Coggins scores 30 points, JSerra would lose.

Although the opposite turned out to be true, the message that Coggins couldn't go it alone resonated, and his teammates picked up the pace exponentially in crunch time.

JSerra erased a seven-point fourth-quarter deficit by forcing turnovers, three to be exact, all in a row, and all sandwiched between the Lions' most impressive offensive sequence of the night.

Coggins lit the fire with a three-pointer from the right elbow, then Reece Lemon followed it up with a jumper off an Andre Darville assist. Darville then picked the Lions' third straight steal on the inbounds pass, laid it up and in and drew the whistle.

"We came out flat, and I felt I had to put a little spark in it," Coggins said. "But eventually my teammates stepped up when they needed to. We couldn't do it without them."

After Darville drained the free-throw tying the score at 50, the remaining four minutes played out like a heavyweight slugfest, with both sides trading blows until finally Coggins tied it on free throws with 12 seconds left.

The fifth-seeded Lions took the lead on two more Coggins free throws to open the overtime and won it at the charity stripe as both Lemon and Marks drained shots at the line to seal it.

Up next for JSerra (16-13) is a Tuesday meeting with the No. 4 seed, Morningside, which took down Wilson of Hacienda Heights, 78-52, on Friday.

"We're just going to keep playing hard," Coggins said. "We're not going to come out flat like tonight, that's a promise. It's going to be a battle."

###

La Puente  --  17  13  18   8  10  -- 66
JSerra        -- 14  10  17  15  16  --  72


La Puente (18-8)  --  Javier Lopez 16, Marco Ponce 15, Brandon Rios 13, La Ray Lunden 9, Juan Cruz 8, Ruben Moran 4, Do Thao 1.

JSerra (15-13)  --  Trenton Coggins 39, Andre Darville 10, Devon Pflueger 8, Reece Lemon 6, Johnny Marks 6, Evan Stromberger 3.

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