BENICIA HIGH seniors (from left) Brandon Barrett, Brady Christopher and Kendal Vargas were honored before Tuesday night’s season finale against American Canyon.

Benicia High’s boys varsity basketball team thought it found the key to the postseason Tuesday night, only to find the lock broken by Fairfield and rival Bethel sneaking into the playoffs.

Benicia’s three seniors combined for 45 points on Senior Night as the Panthers rolled past visiting American Canyon, 78-59, in the regular-season finale. But to have a shot at making the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs, the Panthers (11-16) also needed Bethel to lose to Vallejo AND have Fairfield lose to Vanden.

Bethel cooperated, losing 68-66 to the Redhawks, but Fairfield shocked first-place Vanden, 72-71, in overtime. That created a three-way tie between Benicia, Bethel and Fairfield – each team 4-6 in the Solano County Athletic Conference – for the final automatic playoff spot awarded to the SCAC, and Bethel won on a tiebreaker based on a better head-to-head record among the three teams involved in the tie.

Fairfield ended up getting a Section playoff bid as an at-large team and drew the No. 14 seed in Division III. Had Fairfield lost to Vanden, the Panthers would have been tied only with Bethel for third place and a coin flip would have determined the final automatic playoff berth.

“It sucks to miss the playoffs on a tiebreaker,” said Benicia head coach Steve Carter. “I didn’t think Fairfield was going to beat Vanden.”

Benicia finally looked like a playoff team against American Canyon (14-12, 3-7 SCAC). The Panthers opened the game with a 16-4 run and opened the fourth quarter with a 9-0 run en route to only their third win at home in 11 tries this season.

“It was nice to finally win at home,” said senior Brandon Barrett, who closed out his high school career with 15 points and 14 rebounds. “If we had played like this all year, we would have easily made the playoffs.”

“We wanted to win really bad, even if we didn’t make the playoffs,” said senior Brady Christopher. “We wanted to go out playing our hardest basketball.”

“That’s the way we should have played all the time,” Carter said. “They shared the ball and had fun.”

Senior Kendal Vargas led Benicia with 16 points and Christopher added 14 points. Freshman Will Whitty had seven points off the bench. The 78 points were the most by Benicia in a game all season.

Both teams made a living at the free throw line as Benicia went 32-for-42 at the charity stripe while American Canyon went 18-for-31.

Carter was disappointed to miss the playoffs but is already looking forward to next season, especially with several talented juniors and sophomores eager to make another run.

“This was a learning experience for a lot of guys and I think our future is bright,” Carter said.

Sharing is caring!