Southern Section 4-A Playoffs : Muir Is Upset by Newport Harbor, 53-51

Reserve Dean Sorenson scored twice in the final 1:23 of play to lead Newport Harbor High School to a 53-51 victory over Muir Tuesday night in the second round of the Southern Section 4-A division playoffs at Pasadena High.

Sorenson, a 6-6 senior, slipped inside the Mustangs’ zone defense for the big plays down the stretch as the Sailors overcame a three-point deficit in the final quarter of play. The victory moved the Sailors (24-3) into the quarterfinals, where they will meet Dominguez (21-4) at a site to be determined today.

Muir finished the season with a 20-7 record, and its coach, Mike O’Connor, was left to ponder what might have been.

“The way we lost shocked me,” he said. “We were a better team and we should have beaten them. We came out and played very weak defense in the second half. We just went flat.”

There was no question which team had the best talent. Muir erased any doubts in the first half when the Mustangs opened a 30-22 lead with an impressive fastbreak and an equally impressive fullcourt press.

How good was Muir? Newport Harbor Coach Jerry DeBusk admitted afterward that he thought the game was going to be the season finale for his team.

“I started wondering if this was it,” DeBusk said. “We did everything we didn’t want to do. We tried to run with them which was foolish. There was no way we could play their type of tempo.

“It wasn’t so much the fact they we were down by eight points, but it was the way we were playing that had me worried. They took us out of our game. . . . We never played that way all year.”