Southern Section Basketball Playoffs : 3-A : Trabuco Hills Makes Quick Work of San Luis Obispo

San Luis Obispo High School started slowly and was finished off quickly by Trabuco Hills Friday night as the Mustangs won, 65-52, in a 3-A boys’ semifinal basketball game in front of about 600 spectators at El Toro High School.

Trabuco Hills (21-6) will play Corona del Mar, a 57-56 overtime winner against Morningside, in the championship game.

San Luis Obispo (18-7) was never in Friday’s game. The Tigers came out sluggish and cold and were unable to match up with Trabuco Hills’ speed or its 6-foot-10 center, Rick Swanwick.

“He would give any team trouble whose biggest guy is 6-3,” San Luis Obispo Coach Gary Etheredge said. The Tigers’ tallest player is 6-3 Kevin Tucker.

The Tigers tried to double and triple team Swanwick, but the Trabuco Hills center passed like a point guard.

In fact, all the Mustangs ran a clinic on how to hit the open man as they compiled 18 assists, four by Swanwick. With Swanwick covered, his teammates were not gun shy as they consistently buried open shots.

Three players scored in double figures and a fourth, Tim Manning, had nine points. Swanwick led the way with 17 points, nine rebounds and seven blocked shots. John Goodman had 16 points, and Randy Kriech added 12.

“Every good team, I feel, has to start the game around the basket and work out and (tonight) was a classic example of our doing that,” Mustang Coach Rainer Wulf said of his team’s passing game.

Trabuco Hills jumped out to a 12-0 lead, holding San Luis Obispo scoreless the first 5 minutes of the game.

“We knew they weren’t a good three-point shooting team so we didn’t guard them out at the three-point line,” Wulf said. “We didn’t overextend.”

The Tigers turned the ball over nine times in the first half and could not put the ball in the basket. They connected on 8 of 25 shots (32%) while the Mustangs hit 60% from the field (15 of 25) in the first half. Trabuco Hills led, 39-24, at halftime.

“The first half was our undoing,” Etheredge said. The Tigers had a long bus ride down and were playing their first playoff game on the road, factors Wulf thinks took their toll.

“Maybe they thought it was going to be the same,” Wulf said. “You get into that comfort zone (at home). They seemed really tentative from the start.”

Trabuco Hills led by as many as 20 points, 54-34, late in the third quarter before the Tigers made a run--well, more like a jog. They cut the lead to 13 at 65-52 on the strength of two Steve McCallum three-pointers with a little more than a minute to play. McCallum led the Tigers with 23 points.