Late Rally Lifts Aztecs to Victory : Prep basketball: Saddleback can’t hold 12-point second-half lead as Esperanza comes back to win, 60-55.

For yet another game, Esperanza’s basketball team found it necessary to give an opponent a head start. For yet another game, things looked pretty bleak for the Aztecs.

But for another game, Esperanza found a little extra umph down the stretch to get over the hump.

The Aztecs’ slow-start-fast-finish show was entertaining and enough to beat Saddleback, 60-55, Friday in the first round of the Southern Section Division I-AA playoffs.

“I keep telling them that one of these times it’s going to catch up with them,” Esperanza Coach Mark Hill said. “They’re going to do this one too many times and get snake bit.”

That day could come Tuesday when the Aztecs face No. 2-seeded Capistrano Valley. But Friday, they lived to fight another day.

Oh, things looked bad there for a while. Saddleback, with no starter taller than 6-foot-3, took a 51-39 lead with 3 minutes 52 seconds left in the third quarter when Jason Register hit a five-foot hanging shot.

Down 12, fading fast? Time to kick-start the intensity. For the next 12 minutes, Esperanza (17-10) smothered Saddleback (14-11).

The Roadrunners scored just four points the rest of the game. They went 10:31 without a field goal and made only one of their last 20 shots.

The Aztecs, meanwhile, sputtered and plodded to the finish. They finally took the lead for keeps, 58-55, on a layup and free throw by Mike Lawson with 52 seconds left.

Mike Oliver’s two free throws with five seconds remaining clinched Esperanza’s ninth consecutive victory and its 13th in the past 14 games.

“We just don’t seem to put things together until the second half,” said forward Randy Wilson, who had two key blocks in the fourth quarter. “We get down, and coach builds us up at halftime. Then everything’s fine.”

It has been before. The Aztecs were down 10 to El Dorado and nine to Cypress in Empire League games and came back to win both of them.

This one was a little more difficult, mainly because of Register, who scored 24 points. He had 15 at halftime, including a three-pointer at the buzzer that gave the Roadrunners a 37-34 lead.

Register, who made his first nine shots, scored six points in the third quarter as Saddleback extended its lead.

The Aztecs got their offense from Wilson and Matt Kordik, their 6-7 inside players who went outside for most of their points. Kordik scored 15, with two three-pointers, and Wilson 14, with one three-pointer.