MIDDLETOWN >> It was a bittersweet ending of the 2014-15 Middletown Mustang basketball season.
Bitter because a game the Mustangs had every right to believe they had won against Willits slipped away in overtime, ending in a 51-44 Wolverine victory. It also means the Mustangs won’t advance to the postseason for the first time in head coach G.J. Rockwell’s four seasons at the helm of the Middletown program.
Sweet because this year’s seniors were the first group of players Rockwell has coached at Middletown from the beginning to the end of their high school careers. It was his team, so to speak.
And although the final count was not what the players would have liked, it was a touching moment of sentimentality for a team that overachieved.
“I think these guys did everything we asked them to do,” said Rockwell. “I’m very proud of the way they battled.”
The sad song that would be the end for this group of Mustangs had a decidedly Latin beat to it, provided by its most consistent player, Anthonie Guzman.
Guzman was the game’s leading scorer, missing the 20-point plateau by a single point. But personal victories were not on Guzman’s mind as he hailed a reporter with a request to send a private message to Rockwell that would be seen by the public.
“I just want to say thank you to him,” Guzman said. “He’s a smart coach and he was there for me. G.J. really changed my career and made me into the man I am today. He made me go after my dream.”
Rockwell, said Guzman, helped him with the realization that, although he is too small to be courted by college scholarship offers he can still walk on somewhere — which he will try to do — although not to play basketball. Football reigns as his first preference.
“I’m going to go big,” he said. “G.J. showed me that was possible.”
With this season being one in which no team among the league leaders could get comfortable, it was regarded as a possibility that the two-time defending champion Wolverines could be beat. And in a ragged defensive duel, Middletown set out to prove that point.
The Mustangs were tied with Willits 16-16 at the half, thanks to nine first-half turnovers by Middletown.
Middletown held a 39-35 lead when Guzman stole the ball and scored on a layup with 15.3 seconds remaining. But with just over seven seconds in regulation time left, Dimitri Betts worked his way under the basket and scored to cut Middletown’s lead to two points at 39-37.
Incredibly, Shivam Patel, a sub who entered the game when Anthony Sorace, one of the Wolverines’ leading players, fouled out, scored the tying points just as the game-ending buzzer sounded. Willits went on to win with a 7-0 overtime period.
The victory was the 20th for Willits this season, who went 10-4 in league and tied Kelseyville for second place behind newly crowned champion Cloverdale (13-1). Middletown went 6-8 and 14-10.
