TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS : Unbeaten Tustin Survives Pressure by San Marcos

Tustin High School survived San Marcos’ gimmick defenses designed to stop guard David Beilstein and held on to win its opening-round game in the Tournament of Champions Tuesday night at Ocean View High.

In the fourth quarter, Tustin (5-0) made five of seven free throws and Beilstein hit two three-point shots to earn a 57-55 victory. San Marcos (3-1), runner-up in the Southern Section 4-A division last year, blew a five-point lead in the fourth quarter by committing six turnovers.

San Marcos mixed a triangle-and-two, 1-1-3 zone and a box-and-one defense in an effort to contain Beilstein, Tustin’s hot-shooting guard, after he scored 12 points in the first quarter.

The strategy worked, at least for two quarters. Beilstein was cold in the second and third quarters after Tustin had built a 24-11 lead in the first quarter and San Marcos rallied.

Tustin made only six of 23 shots in the second and third quarters and its big lead disappeared going into the final quarter with the teams tied, 40-40.

Beilstein made only two shots in the second and third quarters and one of those was a half-court buzzer beater to end the first half. He finished with 21 points, including five three-point shots.

“I don’t know what we’d do without him,” Tustin Coach Tom McCluskey said. “Right now, only two of my players (Beilstein and center Brian Reider) are playing well. The rest of the team is in a shooting slump.”

Beilstein entered the game hitting 57% of his two-point shots and 52% of his three-point attempts. He was five of eight from three-point range against San Marcos.

San Marcos has four returning starters, including 6-foot-7 junior center Rob Ramaker, who came in averaging 23 points and nine rebounds per game.

Ramaker scored 22 points Tuesday, but he also committed an offensive foul with 12 seconds remaining while attempting a tip-in and the basket was disallowed. San Marcos could have tied the score, 54-54, but instead Reider made two free throws after Ramaker’s foul to seal the victory.

Afterward, McCluskey was not happy with the way his team responded to San Marcos’ changing defenses.

“We can’t be depending on one guy every game,” he said. “They put up a couple of defenses that we haven’t seen this year and we panicked. We got scared and stopped attacking. The more scared we got, the longer we failed to score.

“We’ve seen mostly straight (man-to-man) and some zone defense this year. We’re lucky we saw it here. Now, we know what to work on. Luckily, our defense picked up at the end and we won the game.”

Reserve guard Robert Laubach made two key shots for Tustin in the final quarter. Laubach’s first basket trimmed San Marcos’ five-point lead to 47-44 with 3:51 remaining and then his second shot with 2:15 left gave Tustin a 51-49 lead.

Long Beach Millikan 72, Los Alamitos 54--Millikan gained its sixth straight victory by making 18 of 30 shots in the second half despite playing without returning all-Southern Section forward Pat Thacker.

Thacker, who has signed with Cal State Fullerton, was suspended indefinitely before the game by Coach Bill Odell for disciplinary reasons. He averaged 20 points in five previous victories.

Another future Cal State Fullerton athlete, guard Dante Powell, picked up the slack by scoring 22 points. Dante was signed by Augie Garrido, Cal State Fullerton’s baseball coach.

Los Alamitos (4-3) trailed 29-27 at halftime after falling behind, 15-1, to open the game. Junior forward Jason Cunningham had 19 points for the Griffins.