Shasta vs. Enterprise Basketball in Redding CA...WOW!

Shasta vs Enterprise....Great Basketball Posted December 06, 2008 at 09:47 AM ronlargent Last night we got to see a great game of fast and exciting basketball....and I wanted to share the coverage story from the Record Searchlight with you, for it says it all. What a fun night of high school basketball. It doesn't get any better than what we saw on Friday night at the Harlan Carter HS Basketball Invitational. Wolves beat Hornets, try for first Harlan Carter title since 1999 By John Ryan (Contact) Saturday, December 6, 2008 The Wolves beat the Hornets at their own game. In a frenetic-paced contest not for basketball purists, in a back-and-forth tilt stamped "instant classic" - the Shasta High School boys basketball team ignited at home with two minutes to play and burned rival Enterprise 56-54. The win puts the Wolves in the Harlan Carter Invitational championship against Pleasant Valley at 6:30 p.m. today. They got there by outrunning the notoriously aggressive Enterprise defense, matching the Hornets' stamina and speed with a 12-man Shasta rotation. And the final two minutes played out like a gem. The Wolves outscored the Hornets 10-3 over the final 1:50 to fill a 51-46 deficit. Most of the 1:50 rolled off unabated as Enterprise ran out of timeouts with 80 seconds left and the Wolves sat on theirs. "I thought we were where we needed to be," Shasta coach Bill Callaway said. Besides, he didn't want to let the Hornets recompose. "If we didn't break and get something we really got stagnant," Callaway said, praising Enterprise's half-court defense. "We didn't move very well on offense. Some of that's lack of practice time, but they just stuffed us in the half-court game so we didn't want to slow anything down." Nick Preston owned five of Shasta's final 10 points and scored a game-high 11, counting a big 3-pointer to cut Enterprise's lead to 51-49 and a layup off a steal by Evan Taylor to extend Shasta's lead to 54-51. The Wolves took the lead on Matt Wayda's go-ahead 3-pointer - his lone score of the game - to make it 52-51 Shasta with 56 seconds left. Enterprise set up the score when it flubbed an inbound pass. Wayda's crowd-raising 3-pointer set off a chain of events in rapid fire. Taylor snagged a loose ball and pitched it to Preston to put Shasta up three. Enterprise broke down the sideline and hit Nyjel Buchanan with a long pass. Buchanan dropped a game-tying 3. Shasta came back up court and Tony Moore drove the lane for two with less than 20 seconds left. Enterprise responded with a decent look by sophomore Cody Fisher in the corner that found iron. Ball game. "I think coming back against a little bit of a deficit is a big thing right there and maybe shows a little bit of what we're capable of doing," Callaway said. And the two-platoon hockey shift gave the Hornets all they could handle. Shasta ran Enterprise to to the point where it would physically and mentaly lax, then Callaway sent in a new line of guys. "We want to play like we did the last minute there," Callaway said. "With a sense of passion and urgency that everything is on the line. If we're going to play 12 guys lets get after it and make things happen." Jovon Cunningham helped keep the Hornets in it early with his clutch 3-point shooting. Cunningham hit four-of-six downtown attempts in the second half. "Usually I just slide to wherever the open lane is," Cunningham said. "You can feel it. It's all in the rhythm. I'd say after my third three I could feel it." He scored 15 points, Buchanan added 15 and Anthony Williams scored 13. Shasta's Tony Moore scored 10. Brett LaHorgue added eight. Reporter John Ryan can be reached at 225-8263 or at jryan@redding.com.