Mira Costa Playoff Hopes Tarnished by Loss to Culver City

Basketball coaches can get pretty technical at times, but Mira Costa High School Coach Glenn Marx had a simple explanation for his team’s 65-56 loss at Culver City on Thursday night.

“Culver City’s good players played well when they had to,” Marx said. “Our good players didn’t play well.”

OK, maybe it wasn’t quite that simple.

“Our kids turned the ball over and missed free throws in the clutch,” Marx said. “Their guys didn’t.”

That was more like it. Mira Costa led by as many as 14 points in the first half, and still had a 12-point lead early in the second half.

But sloppy ball handling and poor shooting did the Mustangs in at crunch time.

Mira Costa dropped to 14-8 overall and 8-5 in the Ocean League. Culver City, second place in league, improved to 13-8 and 10-3. Mira Costa will need a victory tonight at home over Redondo to clinch a third-place finish and an automatic berth in the Division 4-A playoffs.

“It could have been a whole lot easier,” Marx said. “If we beat Culver City at home, we’re in there. But now we gotta win (Friday).”

The two halves were like two different games for Mira Costa. In the first half, Mira Costa held Culver City to 6-of-31 shooting with an aggressive zone defense.

In the second half, it was the Mira Costa offense that couldn’t get anything going. Culver City frustrated the Mustangs with full-court traps, and Culver City point guard Kevin Brown came away with five steals in the second half.

It was Brown who also got the Culver City fast break in gear. He scored all of his nine points in the second half, including a fourth-quarter three-pointer that gave Culver City its first lead of the game, 42-41.

Brown also drove the base line for a scooping layup to give Culver City a 48-47 lead which it never relinquished.

Culver City was led by guard Scott Campbell, who scored 20 points, including a pair of three-pointers in the fourth quarter. Culver City forward Tunde Jefferson added 11 points and 11 rebounds.

Off-guard Simi Fonua was Mira Costa’s high scorer with 16 points, most of which came on backdoor plays underneath the basket. Center Chris Davis added 13 points and 18 rebounds for the Mustangs.

In a Camino Real League game:

Verbum Dei 43, El Segundo 40--El Segundo (13-13 overall, 7-7 in league) held the lead for most of the game, but fell apart late in the fourth quarter at Verbum Dei.

Verbum Dei forward Zellie Hudson was the game’s leading scorer with 16 points. El Segundo center Ken Talanoa led his team with 10.