The Pima Community College men’s basketball team used a pair of runs in the second half to pull away from South Mountain in the 80-55 victory Wednesday night in the NJCAA Region I, Division II semifinal game at the West Campus Aztec Gymnasium.
Pima (31-0) will host No. 2 Chandler-Gilbert (20-11) in the Region I, Division II championship on Friday at 7 p.m.
The Coyotes have won five consecutive games since losing to Pima 72-49 at home Feb. 12.
The Aztecs are 3-0 overall against Chandler-Gilbert this season. Pima also won at Chandler-Gilbert 78-56 on Nov. 23 and at West Aztec Gym 95-55 on Jan. 18.
In No. 1-seeded Pima’s win over No. 4 South Mountain (12-19) on Wednesday, the Aztecs started off the second half with a 13-4 run that was capped off by freshman Isaac Johnson’s 3-pointer to make it 49-32.
With the score at 55-36, the Cougars cut into Pima’s lead with an 8-2 run to put it at 57-44 with about 10 minutes left.
The Aztecs countered with an 11-1 run to take a 68-45 advantage with 7:30 remaining.
They maintained their 20-plus lead to close out the game.
The first half saw three ties and seven lead changes as the Cougars hit six of their first 10 shots and took a 19-12 lead. Pima coach Brian Peabody called three timeouts in that span to get his team focused.
The Aztecs produced a 10-2 run to take the lead at 22-21and would trail one more time in the game. They outscored South Mountain 14-4 in the final minutes to go up 36-28 at the break.
“Coming into the region playoffs, every team wants to play hard and win. We got to take it one step at a time,” sophomore forward/center Gabe Oldham said in a school press release. “It’s easy to look ahead, but we got to take it one game at a time. Tonight, we definitely had a wake-up call that we got caught up looking ahead and we got to focus on ‘the now.’
“Our biggest thing was we lacked our defensive intensity, so being able to not let guys go to where they want to go on offense, curls and down screens stuff like that, being able to push them out, forcing them towards half court and force them away from the basket and not inside, that’s what we talked about at halftime. Also, limiting their shots.”
Sophomore Cohenj Gonzales finished with a game-high 18 points to go with five rebounds, two assists and two steals.
Johnson scored 17 points off the bench as he went 8 for 9 from the field.
Oldham emphasized on the importance of Johnson’s impact on the game.
“That’s what we needed,” he said. “All the starters on any given night can play well, but a true winning team comes down to the bench. Being able to see Isaac hit that big-time corner 3 in the second half, that really set us on fire after that. That’s just huge and it makes me really excited looking forward to Friday.”
Sophomore Wes Ball (Marana) scored 12 points and grabbed five rebounds while fellow sophomore Kota Benson added 10 points, five assists and three rebounds.
Oldham contributed with nine points, 12 rebounds, five assists and one block as he went 4 for 5 from the field.
Sophomore Max Majerle had six points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals.
“The biggest thing is we’re going to come out extremely hard on defense,” Oldham said of the matchup with Chandler-Gilbert on Friday. “We’re going to be pushing them out of their spots and we’re not going to let them reverse the ball as easily.
“If a guy cuts to the paint, best believe he’s going to catch a shoulder. I just think that’s our biggest emphasis. (On offense) like always, just race to 100 and push the ball up the floor.”
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