HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL : Dos Pueblos Reigns Over Buena, 76-59

On the bright side, the Buena High boys’ basketball team remains alone in first place in the Channel League, but only because Dos Pueblos had its game on Wednesday postponed because of rain.

As the Chargers showed in Friday night’s 76-59 dismantling of the Bulldogs at Buena, they are in a different class.

“They just beat us all over,” Buena Coach Glen Hannah said. “Offensively. Defensively. We weren’t doing anything.”

The Bulldogs (10-5, 4-1 in league play) were off to a hot start, but they had yet to play Dos Pueblos or Santa Barbara, considered the league’s co-favorites.

Dos Pueblos (12-2, 3-1) showed the Bulldogs they still have some work to do in order the crack the league’s elite.

Dos Pueblos was led by 6-foot-6 Matt Williams, who had 19 points, 19 rebounds and five blocked shots. At times, it seemed as though there were two of him.

“He’s real consistent,” Dos Pueblos Coach Bruce Nelson said. “He’s been a double-double person a lot. This is pretty average for him.”

So was Dos Pueblos point guard Khary Hicks, who added 24 points and five assists.

The Bulldogs were led by 6-foot-5 junior center Ceneka Shaw, who had 13 points and 14 rebounds.

The only other Buena player to reach double figures was Rob Labrot, who scored nine of 11 points from the free-throw line. Trevor Jackson added 10 rebounds.

The Bulldogs were never in the game, falling behind, 18-9, after the first quarter.

Facing an uphill climb, Buena didn’t help itself with a frigid shooting performance, hitting just 22 of 65 shots (34%) from the field.

Close range, long range, it didn’t matter.

The three-point arc? Arctic. The Bulldogs hoped to overcome Dos Pueblos’ size advantage inside with three-point shooting, but Buena missed all 16 shots it took from outside the arc.

Dos Pueblos made 27 of 48 shots (56%), mostly from right under the basket.

From the middle of the second quarter on, Buena couldn’t cut the lead to less than 12.

Although the Bulldogs could have dramatically improved their chances for a league title with a victory Friday, Hannah said he tried not to hype the game too much to his players this week.

“If you try to make any one game in league too big,” he said, “you get in trouble.”