Peninsula’s Strategy Fails in 46-45 Loss to Kennedy : Preps: Plan to get the ball to forward Anthony goes awry as Panthers lose their first game. Peninsula guard White is top scorer with 23 points, including 19 in second half.

The Peninsula High boys’ basketball team could not get a shot attempt in the final 43 seconds Tuesday night and was defeated by Kennedy, 46-45, in the second round of the Irvine World News tournament at University High.

Peninsula (6-1) was trailing, 46-45, when it called a timeout with 43 seconds remaining. The strategy was to get the ball to John Anthony, but the forward had trouble getting open and the Panthers called another timeout with only eight seconds left.

This time Anthony got the ball with two seconds left, but was guarded by three Kennedy defenders and was unable to get a shot before time expired.

“I thought John might have been fouled at the end,” Peninsula Coach John Mihaljevich said. “I thought we learned a lot from this game. We threw the ball away and weren’t consistent in any phase of the game.

“Kennedy did a good job defensively with its zone. They took away a lot of things we do offensively. We never got our running game going.”

Kennedy (3-2) led the entire game, opening an 11-point lead in the second quarter when center Jermaine Galloway scored on a follow shot. Peninsula held Galloway, who has signed with DePaul University, to only 10 points, but teammates Jeff Cummins (14 points) and Patrick Kunz (12 points) were more than up to the task.

“That was a very good team we beat tonight,” Kennedy Coach John Mayberry said. “We’ve got some momentum going after losing by 30 points to Santa Margarita in our first game.”

Guard Frank White of Peninsula led all scorers with 23 points, including 19 of the Panthers’ 25 points in the second half.