Coach Unhappy With Effort in Warrior Victory Over Mt. Sac

There were no surprises Wednesday night in the El Camino gym. As expected, the Warriors (17-5, 2-0) defeated Mt. San Antonio, 88-67, and as expected the Warriors took more than half the game to get fired up and dominate their opponents.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with them,” said El Camino Coach Ron McClurkin of his players. “There was no communication on offense or defense. They didn’t come to play today. I guess they’re just thinking of Cerritos.”

Mt. Sac, last year’s South Coast cellar team, which ended with an 8-20 record (2-12 in the SCC), lost to El Camino by 14 at the Pasadena tournament in December.

The Mounties could only dream that this time would be different. Mt. Sac (8-13, 0-2 SCC) has already matched last season’s victories and after a 1-point loss to Long Beach on Saturday hoped to earn the win that would improve last season’s dismal finish.

The Mounties, however, were not physically capable of beating the Warriors, despite El Camino’s sluggish performance in the first half.

“You can’t even print what I have to say about El Camino’s first-half performance,” McClurkin said. “I don’t even want to talk about it.”

El Camino led the entire first half, but the Mounties trailed by as little as 4 points with 3 minutes left before intermission.

Frank Beatty’s back-to-back 3-point baskets gave the Warriors their biggest first-half advantage with four minutes left.

That put El Camino up by 10, but Mt. Sac’s David Rice drove the lane for a layup to cut the Warriors’ lead to 7 (41-34) at the break.

El Camino didn’t exactly come firing out in the second half. Five minutes into it, Mt. Sac tied the game at 46 after Joe Abbott’s tip-in.

It wasn’t until five minutes later that El Camino showed signs of dominating the contest after a Zlatco Josic’s (17 points) steal and layup that made the score 63-52.

Beatty scored 16 for El Camino, which will play host to top-ranked Cerritos on Saturday. Forward Kelvin Harris added 15.