Canyons Answers Coach’s Message : College basketball: Smelser’s benching of starters for lackadaisical play pays off with 89-71 win over Moorpark.

The College of the Canyons men’s basketball team appears to have received the message from Coach Lee Smelser.

Either you play hard when you’re on the court, or I’ll find someone else who will.

Smelser delivered that message in a loss to Oxnard last week when he yanked his starters midway through the second half because they weren’t putting forth the required effort and it appears to have had a positive effect on his team.

Although the Cougars lost to Ventura by 10 points a few days later, it was not due to a lack of effort, and they easily disposed of visiting Moorpark, 89-71, in a Western State Conference inter-division game Wednesday.

The loss was the fifth in a row for Moorpark (10-11).

G.C. Marcaccini had a team-high 25 points for Canyons (12-10) after scoring only seven points in each of the previous two games.

“I ran the lanes faster and went to the boards harder than I’ve been doing,” Marcaccini said. “I knew we were going to try to work the ball in more to our big guy today, so when the ball went inside, I just headed for the boards.”

The big guy Marcaccini spoke about was sophomore Jason Joynes, Canyons’ 6-foot-9, 270-pound import from Adelaide, Australia.

Joynes did not play when Moorpark defeated Canyons, 67-66, earlier this season, but he made his presence known Wednesday by scoring 15 points--including 11 in the second half--and grabbing seven rebounds.

“We definitely felt like we had a size advantage on them that we didn’t have last time,” Smelser said. “It definitely made things easier for us with Jason in there.”

Elijah Maxey scored a game-high 26 points for Moorpark, but 10 of those came after Canyons had raced to a 62-42 lead with 12 minutes 39 seconds left in the game.

“I think (Marcaccini) did a decent job defending (Maxey) in the second half,” Smelser said. “He has a longer reach than people think and that might have bothered Maxey at times.”

Canyons led, 38-28, at halftime, then began the second half with a 10-4 run to take a 48-32 lead with 16:26 remaining.

Moorpark Coach Al Nordquist called a timeout to try to short-circuit Canyons’ momentum, but the Cougars outscored the Raiders, 19-14, over the next six minutes to take a 67-46 lead with 10:34 left.

“We got the message last week,” Marcaccini said. “We’re a young team so we kind of needed something like that to get everyone playing hard.”

Canyons received quality minutes from several reserves, including eight points and seven rebounds from Mark Harrison, a 6-7 freshman from Crescenta Valley High.

Harrison has not seen much action during competitive game situations this season, but he scored six points during the first half, and three of his four baskets during the game were scored on follow shots.

Canyons took a 38-28 lead at halftime after closing the first half with a 16-5 run over the final seven minutes.

Harrison started the surge with a follow basket after a Rasaan Hall miss and Marcaccini’s layup off a Erik Stephens assist capped it.

Marcaccini (11 points) scored five points during the Cougars’ run.