‘Just unbelievable’: Mission San Jose’s improbable playoff run continues

FREMONT – The most incredible story in Bay Area high school basketball had seemingly reached its expiration date Saturday night. Mission San Jose’s huge lead was gone. Its best player had four fouls, with a quarter to play. The visitors from Weed had the look of a team that was ready to end the fun, right here, right now.

Then, out of nowhere, the magic returned.

Nervous energy was tossed aside. The home crowd began serenading the players in white jerseys with chants of “WARRIORS” at levels so high that mobile phones warned about the noise.

Joseph Standfield, Mission’s best player, returned to the court with 5:37 to play and the Warriors in the process of making two free throws to cut Weed’s advantage to two.

The rest of the night for MSJ was storybook, a dream, something out of a movie.

It ended with a mosh pit of students in the middle of the court, celebrating Mission’s 62-58 victory that sends the Fremont public school to the CIF NorCal Division V final on Tuesday night at home against San Marin – a team the Warriors beat on the road in a semifinal Feb. 25 on their way to the program’s first section championship.

Standfield was in the middle of the midcourt celebration, then broke away from the pack and eventually put his hands on his knees.

He had given everything he had to score 27 points.

He had played himself to exhaustion to propel Mission – a school known nationally for elite academics but not at all for athletics – to within one win of reaching next weekend’s state championships in Sacramento.

“Man, 200 percent effort, everybody on the court, even on the bench,” Standfield said. “Our bench guys, they cheer for us. We couldn’t have done it without them. We come here every day. We practice hard.

“We want it, man. We want it more. That’s it.”

It took a lot of want to beat Weed, a team that traveled five hours to Fremont, a team that touts its five consecutive league championships and “unmatched excellence” on the back of its black warmup T-shirts.

After Will Chapman’s two free throws cut top-seeded Mission’s deficit to 53-51 with 5:37 left, Weed answered with two free throws from Kaleb Bernstein to push the advantage back to four.

Then Standfield scored from the low block and Brandon White, who had 10 points, made two free throws to tie the score 55-55 with 3:27 to go.

Back and forth in went.

Pharoah Andrews-Abakah’s jumper reclaimed the lead for 13th-seeded Weed, then Standfield hit a shot to tie the score again, 57-57, with 2:21 left.

White’s putback gave Mission a 59-57 lead and his cut to the hoop moments later widened the margin to 61-57.

When Standfield stepped to the foul line with 30 seconds to go, the home crowd went from chanting “WARRIORS” to “MVP, MVP.”

Mission had built a 16-point lead in the first half, burying one 3-pointer after another, but was hanging by the thinnest of threads until somehow it wasn’t.

“We just have to stay mentally disciplined, mentally locked in,” Standfield said, pointing to his temple. “We’ve got to know, if you miss a shot, next-play mentality. We can’t dwell on missed shots. We can’t dwell on turnovers. We’ve just got to play.”

As the team celebrated, Mission coach Mike Kenney stood on the sideline and took it all in.

Six postseason games down, one more to go to reach Sacramento.

“That’s just unbelievable,” said Kenney, a 1977 graduate of MSJ. “As a little kid, I used to go to the Coliseum and Sacramento. I couldn’t imagine Mission San Jose being there. I couldn’t imagine Tuesday’s game at home. It’s unbelievable.”

For Mission, its playoff path has been paved in improbability but not impossibility. The program that has had just three winning seasons since MaxPreps began tracking records two decades ago has found the formula to win, the formula to survive and advance, the formula to capture one championship and aim for more.

The Warriors won their final three regular-season games to gain momentum and then edged one opponent after another as a fourth seed in the North Coast Section Division IV bracket.

Mission won at home over Tamalpais by five and Bethel by three. The Warriors went on the road to beat the bracket’s top seed, San Marin, by four in the semifinals and second seed, Rancho Cotate, by six in the final.

They brought home an NCS championship pennant for the gym wall, the basketball team’s first, and could have another banner with a win Tuesday and a bigger one if they were to win next weekend.

Improbable?

Yes.

Impossible?

As these Warriors continue to show, absolutely not.

“We knew if we didn’t win, we were going home,” said Chapman, who finished with 14 points. “It took never giving up.”