• Mike Forman •
• Originally published January 24, 2009 at 12:40 a.m., updated January 24, 2009 at 12:40 a.m.

Memorial's loss to San Antonio East Central was tough to swallow, but easy to understand.

The Vipers were guilty of a number of mistakes and had a six-point fourth-quarter lead turn into a 68-62 setback on Friday night at the Memorial senior campus gym.

"We pretty much did everything possible to not win the game," Memorial coach John Grammer said. "You can just go down the line. Our end-game situations we were confused, our ball-handling, we missed some shots and free throws, and they made some big shots and made some big threes and made some big free throws and we didn't."

Memorial (17-9) suffered its second home District 27-5A loss and fell to 3-4 and into a tie with the Hornets (11-14), with the realization they will wrap up district play at the East Central gym, where a Victoria school district team has never won.

"We just didn't do what we needed to do," Grammer said. "I thought we were in control. We had a six-point lead. They called a timeout and we lost the momentum and we never did get it back."

Actually, it was Grammer who called a 30-second timeout with 4:50 left in the fourth quarter and the Vipers holding a 60-54 lead.

But Memorial turned the ball over on its next three possessions and Darryl McPherson made two of his three fourth-quarter 3-pointers and the Hornets took a 62-60 lead with 3:27 remaining.

East Central played keep away for the rest of the game, and Calvin McGhee made four of four free throws.

The Vipers had trouble getting off a shot when they weren't turning the ball over and scored only on a pair of free throws by Marcus Salazar with 2:34 remaining.

Salazar, who returned from a three-game suspension, had 13 points and Donte McGee was dominant in the paint, while scoring a game-high 28 points. But McGee's final field goal came 6:48 left in the fourth quarter, as Memorial was unable to get the ball inside against the East Central defense.

The game featured eight lead changes and three ties. Memorial scored seven straight points in a 9-second span of the fourth quarter thanks to a technical foul against East Central.

The Vipers led by as many as eight points and never trailed by more than five points until McGhee made his final free throw with 43.42 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

"We're going to have to go to Carroll (on Tuesday) and win and beat South San at home and make sure we take care of business against Highlands and King," Grammer said. "We've got to beat East Central there."

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