Sunset League : Ocean View Proves Early That It’ll Be the Team to Beat, 65-54

For those expecting an exciting race for the Sunset League championship, forget it. Ocean View High School is simply too overpowering for any of its five adversaries.

The Seahawks proved the point on Friday night by overwhelming Fountain Valley in a 65-54 victory that was only close because they continue to struggle at the free throw line. Ocean View improved its record to 12-3 after gaining an 18-10 first-quarter lead and never looking back.

Although the game was the league opener for both schools and there still are nine games remaining, losing Coach Dave Brown summed up the Seahawks’ chances of winning the title by saying, “There isn’t another team in the league that can play with them. Ocean View is a fine team that is very well-balanced.”

The Barons (8-6) were supposed to supply Ocean View’s only opposition in the league. Fountain Valley had taken the Seahawks to the wire before losing in the championship of the Fountain Valley Tournament, 50-49, on a last-second jump shot by guard Mike Labat.

But this time, there were no last-second shots. Instead, the last quarter took nearly 40 minutes to play as 17 fouls and 5 timeouts were called in as sluggish an eight minutes of basketball as one would ever want to see.

“Credit the coaching of Dave Brown for keeping this game close,” Seahawk Coach Jim Harris said. “He destroyed our rhythm by calling all those timeouts. The foul situation was in our favor, but we couldn’t get off the 10-point lead because we couldn’t make the free throws.”

The Seahawks, utilizing a one-handed free throw style that has most of their supporters cringing and opposing coaches smiling, made only 21 of 35 free throw attempts and repeatedly missed the front ends of one-and-one opportunities in the last quarter.

But any chance of a Fountain Valley victory came to an abrupt end early in the fourth quarter when Baron center Brent Martin collected two fouls within two seconds and fouled out with 7:49 remaining. Martin, who averages 18.9 points per game, left with 12 points.

The Barons trailed, 50-40, when Martin fouled out, but Ocean View failed to capitalize. Fountain Valley cut the deficit to 56-50 with 2:06 remaining on Mike Horner’s jump shot as the Seahawks continued to be erratic at the free throw line.

Afterward, Harris defended his team’s unusual shooting style.

“We’re talking about an attitude of confidence,” he said. “Last year, Ricky Butler was a 46% shooter and this year he’s improved to 58%. You’ll notice when it really counts, we’re putting them down.”

Like in the fourth quarter when you were 11 of 19, coach?

But there’s nothing wrong with Butler’s play inside and his rebounding. The 6-6 sophomore finished with 20 points and 16 rebounds and missed only 2 field goal attempts. He controlled the middle defensively and left an impression upon Brown.

“Butler’s getting better and better,” he said. “We have to play our tails off just to stay with them.”

Harris said he was glad to get the win, but was about to take for granted a league championship at this juncture.

“We learned after the loss to Mission Viejo in our first game of the season that we have to go into every game thinking the other team will beat us,” he said. “I thought Fountain Valley did a better job of controling the game tonight and was more aggressive.”

Edison 59, Westminster 53--The Chargers trailed by seven points going into the last quarter but utilized a full-court press to pull out the victory. Edison outscored the Lions, 19-6, in the last quarter as Chris Cole had three of his five steals in the period that led to easy baskets.

Forward Baron Coenen was shut out in the first half, but came back to score 12 points in the second half. He also had seven rebounds as Edison improved to 9-5. Westminster’s Eric Schurman led all scorers with 27 points.

Huntington Beach 41, Marina 40 --Anthony Howard scored on a 15-foot jump shot with five seconds remaining to give the Oilers the victory. John Pi had scored on a jump shot with 56 seconds left to play to push Marina ahead, 40-39. The Oilers are now 6-6 while Marina is 8-8.