Prep Impressions: Dec. 3, 2011
Murrieta Valley's Darius Butler, right, elevates to sink a basket over the defense of Rancho Verde. / Rodrigo Pena Photography
I covered the Murrieta Valley-Moreno Valley Rancho Verde boys varsity basketball game for The Press-Enterprise on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011, and came away thinking Mustangs coach Travis Showalter really needs a little help with media relations.
Twice now, I’ve been eschewed by Showalter in my attempts to interview him. Granted, both attempts followed lashings by Murrieta Valley, but nevertheless… He doesn’t seem to have much grace.
He audibly sighed when I asked him for a minute of his time. Then said, “Go talk to them. They’re the winners. They’re a great team,” before waving me off with his giant meat hooks.
Whatever. I don’t need to be told twice to go away.
Obviously, it was a canker sore upon what was, really, a very good basketball game.
Both teams showed heart and grit, and for a preseason tournament game, it was as hotly contested as some playoff games.
A pro-Rancho Verde crowd was on their feet in the fourth quarter when Jordan Grace started hitting from three-point range and the Mustangs pulled to within two points. But his teammates missed too many shots down the stretch, and Murrieta Valley made every single free throw and the game was sealed when Darius Butler scored his 17th and 18th points on a put-back to give the Nighthawks a four-point lead with 1:13 to go.
Murrieta Valley coach Steve Tarabilda was once again the personification of class. He gave tons of credit to Rancho Verde, and was humbled by the run his teams have had the last five seasons.
Senior guard Reid Shackelford is sort of luke warm. He has a great feel for the game, makes all the right plays, but is sort of a monotone. Clearly, he’s a gym rat.
I didn’t get the chance to speak to Rancho Verde’s Jordan Grace. He’s got a stop-and-pop jumper with the kind of range that must have recruiters tripping over themselves.
Murrieta Valley coach Steve Tarabilda:
“(Rancho Verde) hit threes at the end but we talked about defending the ‘3’ and staying low and not worrying about making spectacular plays and just make good plays, and I think they did a great defensive job. I think that’s a very good team. They’re gonna go a long ways, so we were fortunate that we hit our shots, and we played great defense. Some these guys are convinced, finally, that defense is gonna win us a whole bunch of games. Last year’s team won a bunch of games ’cause of defense. I think these guys are sold. (Shackelford) is a cool cucumber under pressure. He missed one but he was like hey, ‘That’s one out of how many?’ And he buried’em. He did the same thing last night, went 7 of 8 from the line to put the ball game on ice. (Winning) doesn’t get old, that’s for sure, and we’ve had some great success the last five years. Our guys aren’t exceptional athletes or anything but guys sure work hard. It’s easy to go to practice because you know they’re gonna show up and be ready to go. It doesn’t matter who we’re coaching. Who ever shows up we’re going to coach our butts off. We’re gonna work hard. Faces change, names change (a little bit) but other than that it’s the same. We have a couple of young players. Scott, my son, he didn’t get a lot of time last year. He got a second here, a second there because he had to play behind his brother. Now he’s at the point where he finally comfortable handling the ball under pressure situations.”
Murrieta Valley senior Reid Shackelford:
“I thought team effort was great. We came out with a lot of intensity. Rancho Verde’s a good team. We’re just going to take this confidence — winning’s a habit — and we’re just going to keep builing on this and getting better and better. They were tough. We played them tough. It’s two good teams but we just came out on top because we played better defense.”
All photos by RODRIGO PENA PHOTOGRAPHY
INLAND FIELDHOUSE 