There was only one word Bobby Sanders could use to describe what he saw out of his Tompkins players on Tuesday night. One emotion that was overwhelming from the Falcons head coach towards his players and staff.

Proud.

This was a team that had dealt with so much adversity this year, dealt with adversity in a season deciding game on Tuesday, all while being a team that did not have the same amount of size or physical talent as some of the Tompkins teams of the past.

But that didn’t matter to Sanders and it didn’t matter to his players, who for the fourth straight season clinched a playoff berth, beating Cinco Ranch 68-64 in a do or die game despite losing Luke Caughran, the teams leading scorer, to injury in the first quarter.

“This is the proudest I have been of a group of guys in 27 years of coaching,” Sanders said. “We have 12 guys out of our 15 this year that were in their first year on varsity, they’ve had to learn so much this year and step up. For these guys to make the playoffs and make it in the fashion they did tonight, to show the fight they did, it was just an unbelievable effort by every single player on the floor. I’m so proud of them and especially of our seniors.”

It was a season deciding game for both Tompkins and Cinco Ranch, where a win for the Cougars would have forced a play-in for the final playoff spot between the two teams again in the later week. It was a tight back and forth affair even in the early and when Coughran went to the floor with an injury after hitting a 3-pointer late in the first quarter, there was a chance things could have gone badly for the Falcons after.

But Tompkins rallied immediately, and despite going down 42-35 at halftime climbed back into it and took the lead by one-point heading into the final quarter.

“A lot of people doubted us this year and we wanted to come out and prove them wrong,” said senior point guard Owen Craig. “It felt great to do that, to come out show what we could do and even when we weren’t at full strength still be able to get the win. It was just a surreal experience.”

The Falcons changed gears in the fourth quarter and slowed the game down. Tompkins relied on execution as they held on to the lead and withstood Cinco Ranch’s efforts on both the offensive and defensive end to come away with the win.

“These guys may not have been at the varsity level for multiple years, but they all are poised and know how to win,” Sanders said. “They had won games at the freshman level, the JV level and at the varsity level this year and they knew how to execute down the stretch. They just showed so much poise at the end.”

The Falcons advance to the playoffs, where they will meet Fort Bend Hightower in the bi-district round, time, date and location to be determined. While Tompkins is thrilled to have had its hard work pay off, they still feel like there’s more they can do, and they’re out to keep proving people wrong.

“We aren’t a group that is ever going to give up,” said senior guard Greg Ilagan. “We are going to battle, we’re going to push through and fight no matter what. That’s how we’ve been coached and that’s what this program is about. Tonight was huge, but we’re not done.”

District 19-6A

Tompkins 68, Cinco Ranch 64

Points: (T) Owen Craig 14, Scottie Guillory 14, Greog Ilagan 11, Mason Hereford 11, Colton Collins 5, Luke Coughran 3, Josh Davis 3, Grant Schulenberg 3, Tiger Jackson 2, Emmanuel Paul 2; (CR) Drew Joyce 12, Prince Jones-Bynum 11, Nashir Waters 11, Josh Lennon 11, Emmanuel Gregory 6, Derek Kollmansberger 5, Harrison Moore 3;

Halftime: Cinco Ranch 42-35; 3-Pointers: (T) Hereford 3, Ilagan, Schulenberg, Collins, Guillory, Coughran; (CR) Jones-Bynum 2, Kollmansberger, Lennon; Records: Tompkins 21-13, 11-5; Cinco Ranch 20-13, 9-7;