Orange County Sports / Prep Basketball : South Coast League : El Toro Survives Run to Beat Mission Viejo

It wasn’t pretty. But El Toro High School Coach Tim Travers isn’t worried about aesthetics at the moment.

“All I want to do is keep winning,” Travers said.

Friday night, El Toro did just that, holding off Mission Viejo, 69-63, at El Toro.

The win virtually assured the Chargers (17-5, 5-2) of second place in the South Coast League, behind first-place Capistrano Valley, which El Toro lost to for the second time this season last week.

Capistrano Valley plays Dana Hills tonight at Saddleback College at 7:30 p.m.

But El Toro’s win didn’t come easily, thanks to a 14-6 run by Mission Viejo at the end of the third quarter that brought the Diablos within one point, 46-45.

“The kids are playing harder,” Travers said. “But we’ve got to get 32 minutes every night. We just let (Mission Viejo) take the game from us in the third quarter.”

Until the third quarter, El Toro seemed to have things pretty much going its way. When Don Rezenick--coming off the bench--saved a ball from going out of bounds at the end of the first quarter and threw up the shot as the buzzer sounded, it seemed as if El Toro could cruise through the evening. As Rezenick watched in surprise, the ball arched over the backboard and dropped into the basket.

By the middle of the second quarter, El Toro had opened up an 11-point lead and had a 32-24 lead at halftime after forward Khari Johnson connected on another at-the-buzzer shot .

But in the third quarter, Mission Viejo came back with strong rebounding and a pressing full-court defense, forcing a few key El Toro turnovers. The Diablos spread the offense around, started hitting shots they had missed in the first half and outscored El Toro, 21-14.

But point guard Bret Johnson hit a three-point shot to open the fourth quarter, and soon El Toro had nine-point lead again. The Chargers stayed ahead with free throw shooting, hitting 8 of 13 shots from the free throw line and outscoring Mission Viejo, 23-18, in the final period.

Eric Speaker led El Toro with 24 points, scoring 14 in the first half. Bret Johnson scored 15 points and made 4 assists.

“We haven’t had any (offensive) consistency game in and game out,” Travers said. “Different people have been picking us up on different nights.”

Travers praised the defensive play of junior forward Khari Johnson, who led all rebounders with 15, and put pressure on Jeff Springfield, the Diablos’ primary offensive threat, all night. Johnson also scored 11 points.

Springfield scored 15 points for Mission Viejo before fouling out near the end of the game. Guard Vince Merk also scored 15 points, and forward Tom Tkach added 12 points. Center Bruce Mathieson had 14 rebounds for the Diablos (11-11, 4-4).

Irvine 68, San Clemente 46--Bryan Allred scored a game-high 18 points to lead Irvine at San Clemente. Jeff Petersen added 14 for Irvine (11-12, 4-4), which took a 16-8 lead at the end of the first quarter. Irvine widened its lead to 56-31 at the end of three quarters. Mike Peters had 17 and Mark Broccando 10 for San Clemente (2-18, 0-8).