Santa Margarita Twins Team to Beat La Quinta : Division III-AA: Brian Finneran returns, making key plays with brother Brad to help the Eagles advance, 73-58.

Identical twins Brad and Brian Finneran have been a standout tandem for the Santa Margarita High boys’ basketball team. And unfortunately for La Quinta, the senior twin towers (each 6 feet 5) played like a championship tag team Friday night.

Reunited in a game for the first time since Brian suffered a broken right foot more than three weeks ago, the Finnerans made the key plays in leading Santa Margarita to a 73-58 victory over La Quinta in the first round of the Southern Section Division III-AA playoffs.

Brad, at center, scored a team-high 19 points with eight rebounds, five blocks and four steals, and Brian, at power forward, scored eight of his 10 points during the decisive moments of the fourth quarter as the Sea View League co-champions improved to 21-6. The Eagles will play Pomona (18-10) in the quarterfinals Tuesday night.

Santa Margarita Coach Jerry DeBusk was understandably pleased to have his powerful duo at full strength.

“As always, it was the combination of Finneran to Finneran,” DeBusk said. “They made the plays when we needed them.”

Brad passed to Brian for a layup with 2 minutes 8 seconds to play that gave the Eagles a 63-58 lead and sent the Aztecs into desperation mode.

La Quinta (15-11), which finished third in the Garden Grove League, forced several shots and failed to score in its final five possessions. After having only a one-point lead (31-30) at halftime, Santa Margarita outscored La Quinta in the second half, 42-28.

“I think we really picked it up defensively in the second half,” Brad said. “We all were a lot more active and we went after the ball.”

La Quinta Coach Jim Perry was perplexed by his team’s poor showing with the game on the line.

“I don’t know what happened . . . no one has been able to guard us all year,” Perry said. “We just couldn’t get the ball to go down after halftime.

“We were getting the same (shots) as in the first half but we couldn’t do anything with them.”

The Eagles gladly took some of the blame.

“We tried a lot of different defenses to throw off (La Quinta’s outside shooters),” DeBusk said, “and some of them started to work in the second half.”