SOUTH COAST LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Cougars Stay Focused, Beat El Toro, 71-42
After clobbering El Toro by 37 points in the first round of South Coast League play, Capistrano Valley could have been excused for looking past Friday night’s game against the Chargers to Wednesday’s showdown against Irvine.
Nevertheless, the Cougars were in the attack mode, forcing 33 turnovers in a 71-42 drubbing of El Toro at Capistrano Valley High School.
“We played hard,” Capistrano Valley Coach Mark Thornton said. “I was very pleased that we kept our focus. We need to play hard every night especially with the playoffs coming up.”
Capistrano Valley (21-3, 8-0 in league) broke to an 8-0 lead and was never threatened. Using an attacking half-court, pressing man-to-man defense that limited El Toro to only 14 field goal attempts in the first half, the Chargers quickly buckled as the Cougars raced to a 31-14 lead on Steve Ransom’s two free throws with 1 minute 56 seconds left in the second quarter.
Eddie Rikimaru scored the first basket of the second half for El Toro (8-14, 4-4), but then the Cougars went on a 16-2 run, capped by Corey Kost’s three-point basket for a 49-23 lead with 2:10 left in the third quarter.
It could have been worse, however; the Cougars hit only 26 of 63 shots in the game for a 41.3% mark.
“We missed a ton of layups tonight,” Thornton said. “That was our one weakness. We missed all those easy shots.”
Ransom and Kost led Cougar scoring with 12 points apiece. Ransom and Eric Seiffert had eight rebounds apiece and David Sedgwick led the Cougars with seven assists. Jason Senik led El Toro with 16 points and nine rebounds.
In other league games:
Irvine 63, Dana Hills 37-- Brian Linsenmeyer and Eric Ambrozich each had six points in the first quarter as the Vaqueros broke out to a 19-6 lead.
Jado Lee had 16 for Irvine (20-4, 7-1), Linsenmeyer 15 and Brian Boothroyd 10.
Kevin Baden had 14 for Dana Hills (2-17, 1-7).
Mission Viejo 49, San Clemente 46--Ren Sorensen scored 22 points for Mission Viejo. Marcus Guild led San Clemente with 22 points.