With 8.3 seconds left, the crowd was left stunned as the Moorpark College Raider’s Men’s basketball team suffered a heart-breaker. By hitting an off-balance pull-up buzzer beater the Cuesta Cougars gave the Raiders the loss, 80-81 on Jan. 9.
Spencer Levy had made two free throws prior to the buzzer beater with 8.3 seconds left, putting the Raiders at an advantage for the win. Cougars Guard Kenny Robinson had answered back with a 17 foot pull up, that kept the crowd anticipating the Raiders victory, when the ball bounced on the rim several times before going in.
Raiders Coach Remy McCarthy said that he felt that the game came down to luck in the last seconds of the game.
“The last possession I thought we did everything that we should but the guy just got lucky,” said McCarthy.
The Raiders faced off against the Cougars in their Western State Conference (WSC) opener and wanted to end their losing streak of six games.
Raiders Guard Spencer Levy doesn’t think the loss will affect the team’s morale.
“We just got to keep battling, we can’t put our head down and say we had a great shot, made a bucket and we can’t get down the court, we have to keep playing the flow of the game,” said Levy, who added 10 points. “We have a great group of guys, everybody’s very resilient.”
The Raiders were playing an aggressive game by staying up to par with the Cougars with Matt Ramon (21 points), Jordan Garrett (15 points and eight rebounds), Shayan Boloor (14 points), and Sahdi Odu (nine points and nine rebounds).
Athletic Director Howard Davis believed that the team excelled despite the loss.
“They played relatively well, Cuesta is a good team and we couldn’t seal the deal but I thought our men played well enough to win and we could have won but we just had bad luck frankly,” said Davis.
Davis said that he expects the team to face a lot of challenges in their league games.
“We have a really rough league and our opponents are not going to get any easier, Ventura is really good, Hancock is really good, and Pierce is really good so it is not going to get any easier,” said Davis.
The Raiders are now 5-10 and will play their next game against Allan Hancock College on Jan. 12 at 5 p.m. at Allan Hancock College.
