Boys’ Basketball: Oilers clinch CIF berth
Playing for the second time in as many nights, at least the Huntington Beach and Newport Harbor high school boys’ basketball teams didn’t have to wear the same uniforms.
Everything else about the two schools looked the same before Friday’s game. They had the same overall record, the same Sunset League record.
What wasn’t the same was the outcome from the previous contest.
The Sailors forced a third-place playoff game with the Oilers by beating them at home on Thursday. A day later, they played for the league’s No. 3 automatic entry into the CIF Southern Section playoffs.
They met at a neutral site, at Edison High, and this time Huntington Beach came out on top.
The Oilers rallied for a 48-40 victory, ensuring them a spot in the Division 1A playoffs, while the Sailors hope to receive an at-large berth into the Division 2AA playoffs.
Huntington Beach (17-11 overall) finds out Sunday who it opens the postseason with, and the Sailors (16-12) learn whether they get in.
“That’s a super-tough team over there,” Huntington Beach Coach Billy Thompson said of Newport Harbor, which should qualify for the playoffs because of its above .500 overall. “I told our guys that we’re eventually going to have to win a game where we don’t shoot well, and we finally did.”
After shooting 25% in the second and third quarters, the Oilers overcame a nine-point deficit in the final seven minutes to lock up their best finish in league since the 2011-12 season. They were able to because they went on a 14-1 run, in which Justin Brodt (10 points and 16 rebounds) and Noah Gonzalez came up huge.
With 80 seconds to go, Brodt gave the Oilers their first lead since the 3½-minute mark in the second quarter. The fashion in which the 6-foot-7 center did was a little controversial, as a referee called an intentional foul on Newport Harbor’s Collin Pipkin (13 points and eight rebounds), who hit Brodt hard underneath the basket.
The foul sent Brodt to the free-throw line. He made both, putting Huntington Beach up, 40-39, and because it was an intentional foul, the Oilers got the ball again.
They quickly sent the ball into Brodt, who was unable to convert a three-footer, but he somehow was able to tip the ball out to a teammate near the three-point line. A couple of seconds later, Gonzalez, who had missed all of his four three-point attempts, knocked down a three. Sixty-eight seconds remained and the Oilers led, 43-39.
“I knew my guys were out in the perimeter because I saw all blue around me, so I tipped it out to my guys, just to give my guys a chance to grab the ball,” Brodt said. “Big shot by [Gonzalez].”
Those shots from behind the arc didn’t fall for the Oilers in their 62-40 loss to the Sailors on Thursday.
For the most part, the Oilers’ threes didn’t connect on Friday either. They made only three of 18 three-point attempts, but two of those successful ones came in the fourth quarter during the Oilers’ run.
Hayden Moore had one of the two threes in the fourth, a quarter that saw him score five points. Drake Sueda scored four points in the fourth for Huntington Beach, giving him 11 points. Cooper Starkel led the team with 15 points.
Huntington Beach outscored the Sailors, 19-5, in the fourth quarter. Newport Harbor made only one field goal in the final eight minutes, coming on a Brad Siegel layup 28 seconds into the fourth quarter.
The rest of the way, Newport Harbor misfired on 10 shots, and it didn’t do much better at the free-throw line, converting only three of seven. The Oilers made seven of nine from the charity stripe in the fourth, helping them beat the Sailors for the second time in three tries this season.
“You’re not going to win a Sunset League [game] scoring 40 points, and you’re not going to win a Sunset League game not making free throws,” said Newport Harbor Coach Bob Torribio, whose team shot 53.8% from the free-throw line for the game. “You better make a lot of three-pointers, if you’re not going to make free throws. You got to do one or the other. We didn’t make many threes tonight and we didn’t make our free throws.”
The only player who made threes for Newport Harbor was Zach Blaine, producing four to finish with 18 points. But after the Sailors made 11 of 21 threes on Thursday, they went five for 28 from that range on Friday.
Newport Harbor’s shooting woes allowed Huntington Beach to return to the playoffs for the third straight time under Thompson. By taking the league playoff game, Thompson said he hopes his team does not have to travel as far as it did last season for the first round.
“We went to Oxnard and lost by [two],” said Thompson, whose team placed fourth in league last season and made the postseason as an at-large team. “It was a brutal trip.”
Sunset League
Huntington Beach 48, Newport Harbor 40
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Newport Harbor 13 – 16 – 6 – 5 — 40
Huntington 14 – 9 – 6 – 19 — 48
NH – Blaine 18, Pipkin 13, Chalmers 5, Siegel 3, Barela 1.
3-pt. goals – Blaine 4, Pipkin 1.
Fouled out – None.
Technicals – None.
HB – Starkel 15, Sueda 11, Brodt 10, Moore 7, Gonzalez 5.
3-pt. goals – Gonzalez 1, Starkel 1, Moore 1.
Fouled out – None.
Technicals – None.
Twitter: @ByDCP
