PREP ROUNDUP : El Dorado Boys Hold On to Beat Savanna

The El Dorado boys’ basketball team made four key free throws in the final minute of play and survived a final-second three-point shot for a 51-48 nonleague victory over host Savanna Monday night.

The victory was the seventh for El Dorado (8-6) in its past nine games and gave the Golden Hawks some added momentum for their Empire League opener Friday night against league favorite Los Alamitos.

“We responded in a pressure situation and that’s what I was looking for in our final game before league begins,” El Dorado Coach Wayne Carlson said. “We’re young (seven juniors on the team) and we make mistakes, but I thought we held up against a team that plays very intense defense.”

El Dorado committed only four turnovers in the second half after turning the ball over 12 times in the first half. Savanna’s defense held El Dorado without a field goal in the second quarter and it trailed at halftime, 32-24.

Reserve center Buckley Closson led a second-half surge with eight points that helped El Dorado get back into the game and defensively the Golden Hawks used a triangle-and-two that contained Savanna’s best player, Tobie Priest.

Priest had 15 points at halftime but managed only five in the second half for Savanna. Priest missed two three-point shot attempts down the stretch, including one that went in and came out with three seconds remaining.

Afterward, Savanna’s rookie coach, Greg Haskell, praised his team for winning nine of 14 games in the nonleague season and said it would be a contender for the Orange League title.

“We’ve been overachievers since the season started, and tonight we did all we could,” said Haskell, 25. “But the bottom line was they were just a little better than us.”