Fox Sports replay arms Etiwanda with evidence of foul
Etiwanda boys basketball coach Dave Kleckner left the Honda Center dejected after Saturday night's loss to Mater Dei in the Division 1AA championship game, but it only got worse once he arrived home.
Watching the Fox Sports Prime Ticket replay of the 68-65 loss to the top-ranked team in the state later Saturday night, Kleckner and the Etiwanda assistant coaches saw a slow-motion replay as Etiwanda's Evan Jenkins attempted a game-tying 3-pointer at the buzzer. The junior was obviously raked across the arms by Mater Dei's Eli Stalzer, but no foul was called.
"I didn't think it was that obvious and that bad of a call at the time," Kleckner said. "But it looked like much more of a foul on the replay."
Saturday night, however, wasn't the most upset the Etiwanda coach has felt exiting the Honda Center.
Two seasons ago, Etiwanda was up by two points on Riverside King in the final seconds of the CIF finals when Eagles guard Erick Ellis was pulled to the ground with an offensive rebound. A controversial travelling call on Ellis was the first in a sequence of events that led to Etiwanda losing in overtime.
"Ellis had that ball and the guy clearly grabbed his arm and pulled him down," Kleckner said. "It wasn't on TV and not as apparent to everybody (as Saturday's non-call) but we had the coaching tape and we saw it clearly."
On the next possession, King tied the game in heartbreaking fashion by rebounding their own airball and putting it back in to send the game to overtime where they ran away from a deflated Etiwanda squad.
"That one I felt more like we got robbed of a championship and had that one taken away from us," Kleckner said. "I felt more cheated then because we were winning as opposed to having some sort of dramatic, heroic shot at the end."
About Clay
Clay Fowler has been covering high school sports for six years in California and Texas. He was born in Dallas, attended the University of Texas and worked in Central Texas before joining the Daily Bulletin staff in 2006.
Email Clay here
Leave a comment