FREEWAY LEAGUE BOYS’ ROUNDUP : Fullerton Beats Troy on Last Shot

Fullerton had the right strategy by taking the last shot, because it didn’t appear the Indians were ever going to stop Troy forward Mark Stenner, who was having a monster fourth quarter.

Sophomore forward Ryan Schutz took a nice feed from Gabe Viramontes and made a layup with three seconds left to give Fullerton a 64-62 victory over visiting Troy in a Freeway League game Friday night.

Fullerton knocked down the inbounds pass and Troy was not able to get off a shot.

The victory clinches a playoff spot for Fullerton (14-9, 5-3), which took over second place, a game ahead of Buena Park. Troy (9-13, 2-6), which earlier lost a double-overtime game to Fullerton, was eliminated from the postseason.

But Stenner, who had a game-high 28 points, didn’t let Troy go down without a fight. With his team trailing, 47-39, with 7 minutes 10 seconds remaining, Stenner simply took over the game.

He scored Troy’s next 14 points and had 19 of his team’s 23 fourth-quarter points.

Most of Stenner’s points came on quick, slashing moves to the hoop against Fullerton’s slower front line, or from the free-throw line, where he sank seven of eight shots in the quarter.

“He’s a good open-court player and he took advantage of our big people being in foul trouble,” Fullerton Coach Tony McCabe said. “You tend not to play aggressive when you’re in foul trouble.”

When he wasn’t scoring, Stenner was blocking shots and rebounding. He had 10 rebounds and two blocks.

Stenner’s final points came on two free throws with 1:02 left. Fullerton held the ball until Viramontes drove the lane and dished to Schutz.

“The plan was to hold the ball until the end,” Viramontes said. “We didn’t want them taking the last shot. I just took the ball to the hole strong and two guys came at me. All I had to do was dump it off.”

Normally, Viramontes would have dumped the ball to starting center Chad Murray, but Murray had fouled out a minute earlier. But without Murray’s fourth-quarter contributions, Fullerton would have been looking at a loss.

After barely being able to hit the rim for three quarters, Murray caught fire and scored eight points in the fourth quarter to help offset Stenner’s barrage.

Schutz carried Fullerton in the first half, scoring 12 of his 14 points and grabbing nine of his 11 rebounds in the second quarter.

“I’ve never had a quarter like that,” Schutz said. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Ryan was the man for us,” McCabe said. “It was fitting that he made the last basket.”

Ryan Hartshorn, who scored 11 points, was the only other Fullerton player to reach double figures. Greg Abbott scored 14 points and grabbed six rebounds for Troy and Matt Cardillo added 12 points.

In other Freeway games:

La Habra 49, Buena Park 43--Center Andrija Kristich had 17 points for host La Habra (8-13, 3-5). Buena Park drops to 4-4 in league.