Tracy Press

Tracy High’s Nate Brown jumps above Mount Diablo’s Patrick Lefiti Jr. as he goes up for a layup in the second quarter of their first game Thursday in the 23rd annual Stonebarger basketball tournament at Liberty High in Brentwood. Photo by Enrique Gutierrez/Tracy Press.

Tracy High’s Khrystopher Lawson drives around Mount Diablo’s Joe Cannon on Thursday. Photo by Enrique Gutierrez/Tracy Press.

At a glance
Mt. Diablo 53, Tracy 50

 BRENTWOOD — It’s not necessarily a problem if your point guard leads your team in rebounds.

It’s also not necessarily a problem if your shooting guard scores two-thirds of your team’s points, including the last eight baskets of the game and all but one throughout the second half.
But those did turn out to be problems for the Tracy High boys basketball team on Thursday, and they were exacerbated by the 28 mostly unanswered points from the paint Mount Diablo got from 6-foot-7 center DaMahn Miller — including 12 in a 20-point third quarter — in a 53-50 Bulldog loss in the opening round of the Stonebarger Tournament at Brentwood’s Liberty High.

“He was a huge beast of a kid,” said Tracy coach Paul Demsher, whose team led by nine at the half and as much as 10 late in the third en route to falling to 0-5 on the year, counting tournament play. “We had a hard time dealing with him, but he wasn’t the difference in the game.”

Among the differences — the balance of power on the inside, turnover troubles in the second half — was the lack of balance among Tracy scorers. A few days after putting up 31 against Golden Valley, senior shooting guard Nate Brown put in 30 against the Red Devils, including a fadeaway 3-pointer with less than 20 seconds left to cut the Mount Diablo lead to three.

Brown had a chance to tie it after Mount Diablo turned the ball over on the five-second rule, but triple-teamed, he could not get a clear shot off.

“We’re all anxious to get that first win,” Brown said. “We’ve got to quit playing like a team who hasn’t won a game and play like the team nobody wants to lose to.

“We had a good opportunity tonight against a good team. … We had them, but I think we lost hope and heart in the end.”

With Tracy’s returning center Stephen Memory still out with injury and the two Bulldog big men — senior Stephen Perriera, who hasn’t played since freshman year, and junior varsity newcomer Austin Jones — both battling inexperience, the secret for the Red Devils (1-4) was no secret at all: Pound the ball inside to Miller, have him drive and lay it up. If he missed — which
he did, often — he usually got another chance.

“We were determined to go to him — he’s our bread-and-butter guy,” Mount Diablo coach Craig Battle said. “We wanted to make sure our inside presence was felt.”

Mt. Diablo hauled in 37 boards, with Miller nabbing 20, to only 28 for the Bulldogs. Point guard Khrys Lawson got the most for Tracy with eight.

Miller looked to seize the game early, scoring six of the Devils’ first nine points, but Tracy took advantage of a cold spell and reeled off a 14-0 run to close the quarter with a 19-9 lead.

The roles reversed in the second half, with Miller driving and throwing up putbacks with ease in the third quarter, and after a Preston Mattos 3-pointer with two minutes gone in the third put Tracy up 34-28, no other Bulldog but Brown could find the mark.

Mattos scored six in the game, and Lawson added five.

“The bottom line is, we’ve got to get more scoring as a team,” said Demsher, whose team will tip off at 5:30 p.m. today. “It’s back to the drawing board….”

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