newbury beat simi

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Game Notes: Newbury Park Avenges
A Loss, Beats Simi--(January 15, 1998)

The headline in today's Daily News said it all: "Mighty Have Fallen". The No. 1 consensus pick in the Northern LA/Ventura County region by both the LA Times and the Daily News, and by everyone else who's watched them this season, the tall, talented and tough Simi Valley Pioneers were knocked off in a 73-71 victory at Newbury Park.

The game hero? None other than Brian Bobik, the less-well-known younger brother of Dan Bobik, who is bound for BYU in two years (after he completes his Mormon mission) who secured the win in the final seconds with two clutch free throws as the crowd went nuts.

Obviously since we weren't there, and got caught up watching the H-W v. Alemany game, we had to rely upon our friends and other sources for reports of this one. Truly, no one who saw this game could believe it, and certainly no one we spoke with would have ever predicted this result.

Simi had an 11 point lead going into the fourth quarter. No one, least of all any of the Simi players or coaches, thought they'd blow it. And neither did anyone else on the Newbury Park team, including Bobik. He told the Daily News after the game "I thought we were in trouble, but I still thought we had a chance."

He was right.

Simi was leading 61-50 with 7:02 to play as Brett Michel hit a shot in the lane. But then No. 5-ranked Newbury Park went on a 6-0 run to cut the lead to only 5 at 61-56 with 5:36 remaining. The teams continued to trade baskets throughout the fourth quarter (all that is except Berumen), and ultimately Simi took a 70-65 lead on a basket by Fullove with 2:26 to play.

Newbury Park then called a timeout after Fullove missed a free throw that would have given Simi a six-point lead. Daniel Bobik then followed the timeout with a three-pointer shot to cut the lead to only 2 with a little over two minutes to play. Ian Boys was then fouled, and managed to hit only one of his free throws, and with only 34 seconds on the clock, Simi led by only three points, 71-68.

So, Newbury Park had managed to just chip away at Simi's lead, and they also managed to hold Rafael Berumen scoreless in the fourth quarter. With 15 seconds left on the clock, following Boys' free throw, Luther Staine hit the shot of the night, a three pointer which tied the game, and just seemed to energize NP. Which didn't hurt NP's chances any.

And neither did the next series of plays.

As the Daily News' Jim Inghram wrote "Then things got weird."

Or as the LA Times wrote it "What followed after that [Staine's shot] left some of the Simi Valley faithful shaking their heads."

First, Simi called a timeout after Staine's shot. After the timeout, Simi Valley inbounded and it was Berumen (not a guard) who brought the ball up the court. Amazingly, Berumen was called for a double dribble. Turnover. With 10 seconds left.

"I didn't see what happened," Newbury Park's Coach Johnson told the Ventura Star. "I was a little surprised to see him bringing up the ball. I wasn't unhappy about it, to be honest. But our last play wasn't exactly a work of art, either."

So NP calls a timeout to set up for the last second shot. The ball is inbounded to Mike Meru, who is immediately trapped by two Simi defenders, and he barely got the ball away to Brian Bobik, who dribbled over to the left side of the arc, and just as he was in the process of trying to make a pass, he was fouled by Brett Michel with only two seconds to play. Bobik was fouled way outside the 3-point arc, well away from the basket.

The foul call was, if you were a Simi partisan, pretty controversial. "You hate to see a call like that decide the game, with the kid 40 feet from the hole," said Simi Valley coach Dean Bradshaw. "But we had our chances to put them away earlier, and we probably should have put them away earlier."

So there's young Brian Bobik (6'-3" Jr. G) at the line, shooting two, with the score tied at 71-71, and two seconds left on the clock. He went to the line, and waited -- forever, it must have seemed to him -- to shoot those two shots.

"I thought I was going to pass out" he told Him Inghram of the Daily News. "I thought the first shot was going to miss." In fact, the first shot bounced off the rim, hit the backboard, and miraculously, went in. But Bobik, taking advantage of the new rule which requires the ball to hit the rim before anyone enters the lane (or maybe even risking violating it), was the first under the hoop after the shot. But it dropped, so no need to rebound, and no violation either.

Score, Newbury Park 72, Simi 71. Still 2 seconds to play.

Second shot. "I knew the second one would -- there was a lot less pressure," Bobik said after the game. And he was right. The shot dropped. Score 73-71.

Still two seconds left. The ball is inbounded to Branduinn Fullove. He sets, takes a three-point shot. It hits the rim.

Bounces off.

Game over. Upset. Newbury Park wins, Simi is defeated.

After the game, everybody had something to say. About the shots. About the fouls. About everything.

Dan Bobik told the Ventura County Star, "(Ian) Boys got into trouble, and we were able to take some advantage of that," he said. "When Daniel (Congelliere, Newbury Park forward) got into trouble, we had to get our secondary post people involved, and get perimeter help with
their shooting."

"We knew we had a chance to put them away," said Simi Valley forward Brett Michel, who scored 16 points. "But they hit some big shots down the stretch," he told the Times, referring to Staine's three-pointer and the two free-throws.

"I think that [Staine's shot] might have been the biggest shot of the game," Newbury Park Coach Steve Johnson told the Times. "Emotionally and psychologically, it really gave us a lift. We weren't tired anymore." He also said to the Daily News of Brian Bobik "I've never been prouder of a kid. Brian was having a tough game. It was nice that he was the one at the line. This is an incredible feeling."

And after the buzzer sounded Bobik couldn't maintain the facade any longer. As the Times described it: "Tears of joy streamed down his cheeks as the 6-foot-3 junior accepted congratulatory hugs from teammates and fans alike."

"It was unbelievable," Bobik said. "It was hard to shoot them because I was so excited that I felt like I might pass out."

The win for Newbury Park gives them renewed life, and was the seventh win in the past eight games. They struggled in Las Vegas (as did Simi), but this game managed to avenged their quarter-final 72-54 loss to Simi Valley in the semifinals of the Simi Valley tournament in December before both teams left for Vegas to play in the Reebok Prep Classic. It was also the something of an anomaly, and Simi has only beaten the Panthers once in the last four times these teams have met in league play.

For Newbury Park, Daniel Bobik had 24 points, followed by Staine with 14 and Robert Congelliere with 13. Brian Bobik scored six of his nine points in the last 5 1/2 minutes of the game. Others who played well, including tremendous defense, were Brian Polen, who finished with 6 points, Mike Meru, Svitek with 2, and Block with 2.

For Simi, Rafael Berumen scored 24 points, but none in the fourth quarter. Kurt Mjoen, playing his usual quiet but very effective defense, scored only 2 points, while Bret Michel had 16. Brandon Fullove finished with 10 points, Ian Boys had 10 (we think that might actually be one of his high games, if not the high game this season), and Shaun Michel had 7. Zumo finished with 2.

And in case you're interested in scoring by quarters, here it is:

Both teams finished the first quarter with 16 each; in the second quarter, Simi only outscored the Panthers by 1 point, and led at the half 32-31. In the third quarter, Simi managed to pull ahead by 10, outscoring the Panthers 25-15. But then with Berumen going stone-cold, Newbury Park steadily and deliberately and with the help of those few calls, managed to outscore Simi 27 to 14 for the win.

Oh, and if that wasn't enough for you, the Newbury Park girls team defeated the Simi girls team 67-66 on a three-point shot with only 35 seconds left by Oli Kehohou after trailing 64-66.

Karma? Maybe. Thought stuff like this only happened in Orange County with Santa Margarita and Brea Olinda? Think again.

We can't wait for the playoffs.