Team of destiny? Julian Mora, Summit stun Roosevelt at buzzer in Oregon 6A boys basketball quarterfinal, keep perfect season alive

By Paul Valencia | Photos by Taylor Balkom 

Julian Mora did not have time to be bummed at himself for missing two free throws late in the game Wednesday night for Summit. 

He had a little more than four seconds to redeem himself.

Four seconds to send the Storm to the Final Four.

Caden Harris chased down the rebound off of Mora’s second miss, kept his feet in play, turned and shot. The ball bounced off the rim, straight to Mora, who put the ball in the basket as the horn sounded for a 65-64 victory over Roosevelt in a quarterfinal of the 2022 OSAA/OnPoint Community Credit Union 6A Boys Basketball State Championship. 

“That’s what you dream of, that’s just what you dream of,” said Mora, who scored 17 points in the win. “That’s why you work so hard.” 

After his shot, he took a lap around the Chiles Center court on the campus of the University of Portland, his teammates chasing him down. He jumped up on the scorer’s table and expressed even more emotion.

Victory.

To keep the Storm perfect this season. 

Summit, the No. 2 seed in the tournament, improved to 26-0 and will face No. 11 Mountainside in a semifinal at 3:15 p.m. Friday.

After the initial celebration came the second rush. The Summit students disregarded the norms and stormed the court after a quarterfinal win. Or, in this case, should that say Stormed the court? 

“Best feeling ever,” said Carson Cox, who scored 13 of his 16 points in the second half as Summit rallied from a 10-point deficit.

“We’ve never been here in 6A. Never gone this far, so it’s huge for us,” Cox said. “We have our whole community supporting us. Love it.”

Both the Summit and Roosevelt communities went through a series of ups and downs in this one. There were 16 lead changes, including eight in the final quarter.

So many clutch shots were made by both teams, but it was a few misses that led to the biggest basket of them all. 

Mora was 4 for 5 from the line before being fouled with just less than five seconds remaining, trailing by one. Missed the first attempt to tie. Then the second.

“Shouldn’t have done that. That’s on me,” Mora said. “But Caden, the type of player he is, went and got the rebound, put it up. I found the board, and that was it. … It’s my guy Caden Harris. I’m nothing without him. I love him.”

Harris had a big night, too, beyond that rebound. He had 16 points and nine boards for the Storm.

On the other end of the Chiles Center, the Roughriders were devastated, coming oh-so-close to the semifinals.

“They put up the effort and energy needed to come out and win. Sometimes the ball bounces like that,” Roosevelt coach Yusef Leary said. “Sometimes it’s a hard lesson you learn.”

The postgame talk with his team was not about the Xs and Os of what happened Wednesday. 

“Just super proud of them and wanted to let them know how proud I am of them for going through all the adversity of the season,” Leary said. “The maturity, the growth that they’ve shown as young men trumps anything they’ve done basketball-wise, and they’ve done some great things basketball-wise, too. 

“I’m just proud of them. I know that’s not what they want to hear right now. But I love them, and we've still got more work to do.” 

Roosevelt, the No. 7 seed, fell to 21-7. The Roughriders will play Cleveland at 10:45 a.m. Thursday in the consolation round. That winner will play in Saturday’s fourth-place game.

Summit gets a day off to prepare for the championship semifinals. The Storm know every game can be close in this tournament.

The team did not have a lot of close games in the regular season. Summit rarely found itself down by 10 points. But on Wednesday, that’s where the Storm were early in the third quarter.

“We haven’t had a lot of experience (with close games), but we know what we can do,” said Truman Teuber, who put on a defensive clinic in the second half for the Storm. “We were always confident. We never got down. We always knew we were going to win this game.”

Roosevelt’s Terrence Hill led all scorers with 22 points. He had 16 in the first half. Teuber, and at times Collin Moore, got the assignment to stick with Hill in the second half. That strategy worked.

“Our whole game plan was to stop him,” Teuber said.

“Just effort. Effort on the defensive end and transition into offense, and never giving up,” Cox said. “We were down big, but we stuck with it.”

Roosevelt’s Utrillo Morris picked up the scoring load in the second half. He finished with 16 points.

Hill made two free throws with 13 seconds to go to give Roosevelt a 64-63 lead. Less than 10 seconds later, Mora was fouled and went to the line.

Didn’t go as planned for the Storm, but it worked out for them anyway, sending their fans into a frenzy.

The Storm expect more fans to arrive from Bend for Friday’s game.

“I just hope the kids in Central Oregon see what we can do and want to do it, too,” Mora said. “Central Oregon is not a big basketball area, and we’re trying to change that. I hope they all can come Friday.”