SOUTH COAST LEAGUE ROUNDUP : After Travers Supplies the Kick, El Toro Scores 66-41 Victory

To put it mildly, El Toro High School basketball Coach Tim Travers wasn’t pleased with the Chargers’ first-quarter play Friday night in a 66-41 victory over Mission Viejo at El Toro.

After watching his team fall behind, 14-13, and fail to get a shot off at the end of the quarter, Travers jumped off the bench, spun and kicked a folding chair into the scorer’s table behind him.

Bob Knight would have been proud.

“I was just mad because we had blown an assignment on that last play,” Travers said. “Maybe I got their attention with the chair.

“My foot’s still hurting from that. I thought I cut it, but I probably just wound up with a nice bruise. I learned that from my soccer coach back at Santa Monica High.”

It also taught his players something.

The Chargers, ranked No. 2 in Orange County, outscored No. 9 Mission Viejo, 21-5, in the second quarter. They led, 34-19, at halftime and Mission Viejo came no closer than 12 in the second half.

El Toro’s Rob Johnson, who scored a game-high 25 points, said his coach had reason to be upset after the first quarter.

“He really went off,” Johnson said. “He got in our faces after the quarter was over, but we responded.”

Johnson led the way, scoring seven points as El Toro opened the second quarter with a 15-1 streak.

“It just takes us a little while to get going,” Johnson said. “We’re always a little shaky in the first quarter. I don’t know why. I guess it’s just a bad habit we have to break.”

But El Toro did continue a good habit--three-point shooting. Johnson made five of six three-pointers as the Chargers were 10 of 11 from three-point range.

“We’re a good shooting team,” Johnson said. “We had something to prove after we played so bad (in a loss to Dana Hills) on Wednesday night.”

More importantly, the victory kept the Chargers in the South Coast League race. They improved to 14-3 overall and 2-1 in the league; Mission Viejo is 12-5 and 2-1.

“I was just glad to see us bounce back,” Travers said. “We got our lunch handed to us on Wednesday night, but we came back.”

Travers said he was pleased with El Toro’s defense. The Chargers forced 12 turnovers and the Diablos made only 17 of 55 shots.

“I have no excuses,” Mission Viejo Coach Bob Minier said. “They were ready and we weren’t. I have to give them a lot of credit on defense, but our offense was terrible too.”

Just ask Eric Cramer, Mission Viejo’s leading scorer. El Toro’s Greg Everett held Cramer to five points, 10 below his average. Greg Amaya led Mission Viejo with 13 points.

“Everett can do the job on defense,” Travers said.

Johnson agreed.

“Everett shut down the lane,” he said. ‘Cramer was frustrated the whole game.”

Capistrano Valley 62, Irvine 47--Scott McCorkle scored 27 points and Chris Kostoff had 17 to lead Capistrano Valley (11-7, 2-1). John Molle had 16 for host Irvine (10-9, 1-2).