SOUTH COAST LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Capistrano Valley Wins Title With Simple Plan

Capistrano Valley clinched its sixth South Coast League boys’ basketball title in seven years Wednesday night with a pure, simple strategy--get the ball to your tallest player and let him shoot layups.

Jeremy Garrett, the Cougars’ 6-foot-8 center, scored 21 points to lead the second-ranked Cougars to a 60-40 victory over fourth-ranked Irvine at Capistrano Valley.

The championship was the eighth in 11 years for Capistrano Valley (22-3, 9-0), which had defeated Irvine (20-5, 7-2), 63-62, earlier in the season.

“There’s a lot of pressure on the players here to live up to this,” said Garrett, a senior who made 10 of 12 shots from the field. “But deep down, it feels pretty good to have it on you. It was a dream of mine to win it my senior year.”

Garrett scored 18 of his points on point-blank layups. His inside scoring opened up the outside for Tom Airey, who made five three-pointers and finished with 17 points.

“I was lucky because Irvine didn’t sag off Tom as much as they had,” Garrett said. “When they sagged on me, we got it back out to Tom. It was pretty much a no-win situation for them.”

Capistrano Valley led, 35-25, at halftime--and Garrett and Airey did most of the damage.

Garrett scored 12 points in the opening 12 minutes, including 10 on layups, as Capistrano Valley pumped the ball inside to him.

Airey, a 6-1 senior who has signed with Loyola Marymount, took over in the final four minutes of the first half. Garrett was on the bench with two fouls. Airey made two three-pointers in an 11-4 Capistrano Valley run to end the second quarter.

Capistrano Valley put the game away in the first four minutes of the third quarter.

Garrett made two layups and Airey made a three-pointer as the Cougars outscored the Vaqueros, 10-0, in the first 4:04. Irvine came no closer than 18 points, and Capistrano Valley led by as many as 23.

Eric Ambrozich scored 10 first-half points for Irvine, but fouled out in the third quarter trying to stop Garrett.

“We went to Jeremy a lot in the third quarter with Ambrozich on him,” Capistrano Valley Coach Mark Thornton said. “Then we got the ball to Airey on the weak side.”

The blowout surprised Thornton, who watched Airey sink a jumper at the buzzer to beat Irvine in their first meeting.

“The fans seem to like those last-second shots,” Thornton said. “But I felt we had this game pretty much under control in the third quarter.”

In other league games:

El Toro 61, San Clemente 60--Jason Senik hit two free throws with two seconds left to give the Chargers (9-14, 5-4) the victory. Senik scored 13 of his 18 points in the fourth quarter, including three three-pointers. Marcus Guild had 33 for San Clemente (8-15, 2-7).

Mission Viejo 44, Dana Hills 35--Eric Sorensen scored seven points and Jeff Carr had six in the fourth quarter for Mission Viejo (5-16, 3-6).