APTOS — Last month, Aptos High beat St. Francis High by 10 points in the championship game of the Bob Hagen Memorial Tournament in Gilroy.
The Sharks had a key piece missing from their lineup in that meeting: Chase Watkins.
“They play well already,” said Aptos head coach Joseph Smith, “but having him back, they play even better.”
The 6-foot-4 forward poured in 22 points, his frontcourt buddy Jason Gallo added 16 points and 10 rebounds and St. Francis held off Aptos to secure a big 67-59 Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League victory on Tuesday night.
A season after helping St. Francis (12-3, 4-1) to league, section and regional titles, Watkins started the year on the bench with an abdominal injury before returning to the court for the team’s league opener.
The Sharks’ three losses this season have come with Watkins out of the lineup, including their loss to Aptos (12-6, 4-2) in early December, and last week’s SCCAL stunner against Harbor High — he missed the latter with an ankle injury.
“That was frustrating,” said Watkins, who also grabbed nine rebounds.
He took out his frustrations during the Sharks’ second-half push, scoring 12 points over the final two quarters. His layup with 3:18 left in the third quarter gave St. Francis a three-point lead, and forced Aptos to call a timeout.
The Sharks never let their advantage dip below three the rest of the way.
“I thought our patience on offense paid off,” said St. Francis head coach Ed Kelly. “Our guards got the ball to our two big guys, and they did a good job finishing.”
Aptos thrice cut the lead to four during the final stanza, but could not bring it any closer.
Rashaun Wooden’s swish from 3-point land with a little more than three minutes left to play made it 57-53, but Jake Taylor dropped in a pair of clutch layups to help the Sharks end the Mariners’ four-game win streak.
“They shot really well tonight, and they played good defense on us,” Wooden said. “We just didn’t execute as much as they did. You got to give it to them.”
Wooden led the Mariners with 18 points, while Blake Welle, Max Pepperdine and Forrest Hays all added 10. Welle also hauled in 11 rebounds, and Pepperdine made six steals.
The Mariners’ bench outscored the Sharks’ 14-4, but Taylor’s back-to-back layups in the fourth with Gallo in foul trouble helped the defending champs hold on.
It also didn’t hurt to have Andrew Seymour add in 11 points, including a slick buzzer-beating layup at the end of the third.
E.J. Kelly helped the cause with seven points, seven rebounds and five assists.
“I thought we had a lot of guys contribute at various points tonight, and that’s what I was really happy about,” coach Kelly said. “Yeah, our bench is different than last year, but they’re contributing in different ways. They’re doing a good job of helping us win some games.”
And St. Francis might need even more help when league-leading Santa Cruz High comes to Watsonville on Friday night. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.
A win would land the Sharks in a tie for first in the SCCAL at the midway point of the season.
“We never say it’s a must-win,” Watkins said. “We’re going to go out there, and we’re going to give it everything we have.”
Pepperdine helped Aptos jump out to an 11-4 lead in the first quarter, but St. Francis trimmed the advantage to two by quarter’s end.
Kelly’s 3-pointer early in the second tied it up at 19-all, but the Mariners kept the Sharks at bay until the third.
Seymour’s 3-pointer made it 31-30 at the half, and Joseph Ramirez nailed a shot from beyond the arc on St. Francis’ opening possession of the second half to give the Sharks their first lead of the game.
Wooden’s wild driving layup through traffic a minute later put Aptos in front again, and Jackson Carver’s 3 gave the home team a three-point advantage.
But St. Francis answered back with four straight layups, three of them coming from Watkins, to go up by five.
The Sharks led 47-42 heading into the fourth.
St. Francis started to pull away late in the final quarter, but Aptos battled its way back in.
Taylor’s consecutive buckets off the pine made it an eight-point game, but Welle powered in a layup out of a timeout and converted a pair from the charity stripe to cut it to four.
Aptos had a chance to make it a one possession game during the final minute thanks to a steal from Pepperdine, but the Mariners turned it over.
They had only six giveaways all game.
“I thought the guys did a nice job protecting the basketball,” Smith said. “We just came up a little short at the end.”
Before Tuesday night, Aptos’ only league loss came to Santa Cruz in its opener.
The Mariners led by nine at the half, but wound up losing by three. They finished the game with Hays on the bench with an ankle injury — he was still recovering from the injury on Tuesday — and Welle in foul trouble.
Aptos will get six full days off to rest up before hosting Santa Cruz on Monday.
“We got to get back to getting some wins, and not letting this hang on our shoulders,” Wooden said.
