Geneva School of Boerne boys basketball coach Julius McNeal will likely never forget Tuesday’s playoff game between the Eagles and Houston Cypress Christian in Boerne.
Geneva won it in dramatic fashion with a late 3-pointer but the 55-53 victory came against McNeal’s former boss, Eric Boerboom.
Boerboom, the former Geneva athletic director and now head coach at Cypress Christian, is the one who hired McNeal as the Eagles’ head coach a few years back.
“Playing against the guy who gave me my first opportunity to be a head coach was definitely bitter sweet,” McNeal said. “He’s one of the reasons I’m here at Geneva. To get my first playoff win against him, it’s something that I wouldn’t have ever imagined when I took this job.”
Geneva’s win advances them to the regional round where they’ll face Houston St. Thomas Episcopal Saturday.
McNeal and Boerboom are friends and are familiar with the other’s coaching style so it shouldn’t be a surprise that it was a close game throughout.
The Eagles were leading at the end of one, 19-14, and took a 30-26 lead into the break, but the Cypress Christian Warriors outscored the Eagles in the third, 16-13, and it was a one-point contest going into the final quarter in favor of Geneva, 43-42.
It was back and forth after that and tied 50-50 midway through the fourth period but Cypress Christian took a 53-50 lead with a three-point play after a basket and a foul.
The Eagles answered and cut it to a point at 53-52 with a 2-point bucket and it stayed there for a spell after a couple of misses and turnovers.
After a three-second violation by the Eagles with 30 seconds left, the Warriors had the ball and were killing clock. Geneva fouled with 17.5 seconds and sent Cypress Christian to the free-throw line.
The Warriors player missed both foul shots to keep it at 53-52 and Geneva grabbed the rebound on the second missed free throw.
After that, Geneva moved the ball down court and worked it around before Wyatt Bruss ended up with it. Bruss lined up his shot and drained a 3-pointer with 4.5 seconds remaining to give the Eagles a 55-53 advantage.
The Warriors still had two timeouts and used one of them before they inbounded the ball from under the Geneva basket. They advanced the ball to midcourt and Boerboom burned their final timeout to set up a play with 1.2 seconds left.
Cypress Christian inbounded and took a quick shot from just inside halfcourt. The shot was straight but too long and bounced off the backboard and the celebration began for the Eagles.
McNeal said it was a wild one.
“I think we came out a little too excited with it being the first home playoff game in a while for the boys program,” he said. “We made it memorable for the ones watching, I can say that for sure. I’m so proud of my guys, we have guys banged up but we found a way to get it done.”
Bruss finished with 17 points and had three 3s in the game, Colton Lutz led the Eagles with 18 points, Jack Taylor scored 9, K.P. Fitz-Gerald, Jack Walker Harden and Caleb Quitadamo added 3 points apiece and Griffin Freiling netted 2.
Kolton Kurek paced the Warriors with 25 points.
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