Oceanside Can’t Get a Grip, Ends Up Losing to Madison

Maybe if Oceanside High School hadn’t treated the basketball as if it were a wet bar of soap, things would have gone better for the Pirates Thursday night at Madison.

Maybe if a couple of their 25 turnovers wouldn’t have turned into fourth-quarter slam dunks for Madison’s Monte Bohannon and Brad Eaddy, Oceanside would be preparing for Saturday’s San Diego Section quarterfinals.

Instead, thanks to a few breaks and a lot of guts, Madison slid past Oceanside, 69-59, and will play host to San Pasqual Saturday evening.

The game wasn’t 3 minutes old when Oceanside Coach Don Montamble pushed himself off the bench to call timeout. Madison (15-12) had roared off to a 9-2 lead, and Montamble was having nightmares of last season’s playoffs, when his team fell behind Kearny, 8-0, and never came back.

But that’s not what happened. Oceanside (13-11) closed the gap to 17-14 and had Madison running scared.

But then there were the Oceanside turnovers. Guards threw the ball away. Forwards turned perfect passes into out-of-bounds deflections. Once, two Oceanside players dove on a loose ball and were called for traveling. At least the Pirates were consistent: They had 13 turnovers in the first half and 12 in the second.

“It was a big game, and the kids were nervous and wide-eyed,” Montamble said. “We’d get a surge and make a run at Madison. . . . But then we’d turn the ball over, and then someone would get lost on defense and give Madison an easy layup.”

Fred Dunn, who led Oceanside with 17 points, had a simpler explanation: “We weren’t using our heads tonight. We were throwing the ball around and stuff.”

Oceanside was wounded once in each half by a Kirk Cumming three-point shot, and the Pirates were hurt plenty by Madison’s Robby Robinson, who reached his average with 27 points. Monte Bohannon had 15 points and Cumming 14.