For the first time since 1985, the men’s basketball team reached the state final eight, which was held this past weekend at the Alex G. Spanos Center at the University of the Pacific.

The Vaqueros made it to Stockton with victories over Cerritos College (53-52), San Bernardino Valley College (86-76), and L.A. City College (76-70).

Marc Walters had a career high of 26 points in the upset over the number one-seeded LACC, avenging Glendale’s 107-83 loss to them last season.

Glendale (23-11) went to Stockton with fewer wins that the seven other teams that made the playoffs. And they went there with the challenge of facing the much bigger team of San Jose City. For a while, San Jose’s size wasn’t a problem as Glendale built an 11-point lead late in the first half.

Despite a career high of 26 points for Eskias McDaniels, San Jose City’s (31-5) size proved too much for Glendale. San Jose overcame the 11-point first half deficit to win 68-63.

“It was a great year,” said Coach Beauchemin “It was quite an achievement.the fact that we went through the number one seed [LACC] in the state, and beat them at their gym.”

Beauchemin told his team after the loss to San Jose City that they probably should have won the game, but that they shouldn’t look at the negative side and rather dwell on the good memories of the season as a whole.

It was a season that was marred with injuries. Before the season, guard Jeff Washington went down with a broken foot, and during the season, guard Ronald Gray was grounded by an eye injury.

“Despite all that, someone else would step into the spot, and do a good job,” Beauchemin said. “That’s the key to a team. Your effort when guys go down, or get in foul trouble.”

Glendale started the season 6-5, and was only 13-9 after a loss to L.A. Valley College. Since that loss, Glendale finished the regular season winning seven of their next eight before heading into the playoffs.

“We did peak at the right time,” Beauchemin reported. “We just hit a bad spurt right at the end of the first round [of conference play], and in the second round we ended up 6-1.”

All in all the Vaqueros have a lot to be proud of this season.