BOYS’ BASKETBALL DIVISION IV : Coronado Title Defeats Imperial, Stereotype

Hey, all you water polo and tennis players, listen up. The Coronado boys’ basketball team won the Division IV San Diego Section championship Friday with a 63-53 victory over Imperial at Golden Hall.

Nyah-nyah nyah nyah-nyah nyah.

“We’re stereotyped as a tennis and water polo school,” said 6-foot-3 center Derek Wastila, who scored 19 points. “Little do they know we have some talent out here.”

Enough, in fact, to win the school’s first section basketball championship. This team also won Coronado’s first league championship since 1963, finishing atop the newly formed City Harbor League.

“All they hear is tennis and water polo,” Coronado Coach Bob Stanton said. “But we’ve beaten some pretty good teams this year. This wasn’t a fluke.”

Still, people have been telling guard Paul Carter for years that he should transfer to a real basketball school. He didn’t listen.

“I stuck it out for four years,” he said. “And I’m pretty satisfied with my career here.”

Carter ended it with an exclamation point, scoring nine points and assisting his teammates on a rather amazing accomplishment in the third quarter, when Coronado (19-8) outscored Imperial 18-2. Imperial, which used a balanced offense to build a 33-29 halftime lead, managed only a pair of free throws in the third quarter. Forward Brian Williams’ half-court prayer at the conclusion of the period, which bounced around the rim and out, was the closest thing Imperial had to a field goal.

“I think their size and strength wore us down a little,” Imperial Coach Kerry Legarra said. “We just quit moving and maybe that was because of fatigue.”

If Imperial (16-8) was tired, it wasn’t extinct. Trailing, 47-35, at the end of the third quarter, the Tigers trimmed Coronado’s lead to eight with less than three minutes remaining. Then, when Imperial forward Erik Mellas drove for a layup, Wastila swatted Mellas’ shot halfway to Orange County, and Carter wound up with a layup on the other end.

“I do tend to feast on the smaller teams,” Wastila said.

A basket and three free throws down the stretch by forward Adam Smith, who scored 19 points to share game-high honors with Wastila, helped preserve the victory, Coronado’s second over Imperial this season.

One key to this victory was Stanton’s decision to change the defense in the third quarter from a box-and-one, designed to shut down forward/center Brian Williams, to a two-three zone. Williams managed just nine points, and the defensive switch threw Imperial’s offense out of kilter.

“A lot of their shots came easy,” Legarra said. “And a lot of ours came very, very hard.”

But Legarra wasn’t completely dissatisfied.

“How many teams,” he asked, “score two points in one quarter and are still in the ball game?”