ORANGE LEAGUE BASKETBALL : Western Beats Brea to Move Into Second

With Southern Section playoff slots dwindling, Western picked a good time to play its finest game, defeating Orange League leader Brea Olinda, 65-60, Wednesday at Brea.

Led by Bret Vernon’s 20 points, 15 of which came in the first half, Western used a 17-2 spurt in the third quarter to take a 49-34 lead into the fourth, then were able to hang on and throw the league race into a wild scramble.

Western (11-13, 6-3) moved into a second-place tie with Valencia. Both trail Brea Olinda (17-8, 7-2) by one game with one remaining. Valencia plays at Brea on Friday and fourth-place Savanna is at Western.

Western Coach Conrad Byars knew the Pioneers could not think about Friday before playing well Wednesday.

“Without question this is the biggest win of the season,” said Byars, in his first year at Western. “Our players just did a great, great job. We attacked their press well, got good shots and, I thought, controlled the game until the final three minutes, before we wilted a bit.”

The Wildcats have already clinched a playoff spot. What they want is the 19th league title in school history, and their first outright championship since 1986--the last year Gene Lloyd coached here before returning last season.

But Lloyd said Brea won’t be celebrating if the Wildcats play this way against Valencia.

“They came into our house and just took it to us,” he said. “It was obvious they wanted the game more than we did. If we come here again with the same effort, we’ll just be in the playoffs and playing our first game somewhere besides here.”

In a Jan. 18 loss to Brea, Western turned the ball over 19 times, which did as much to stifle its offense as its 22-of-75 shooting did.

On Wednesday the shooting was not that much better (24 of 62), but the Pioneers took better care of the ball, with only 13 turnovers to Brea’s 20. And none was more costly than--with the game still within reach at 63-60--an errant pass that went from Brea’s end of the court to Western’s, giving the Pioneers the ball back with three seconds to play.

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In other Orange League games:

Magnolia 63, Valencia 57--Josh Reding scored 22 points for host Magnolia (11-3, 3-6). Nick Gamboa had 12 points for Valencia (9-16, 6-3).

Savanna 60, Anaheim 29--Conway Nguyen scored 15 points and David Draghinas added 14 for Savanna (15-9, 5-4). Teammate Brandon Warden had 12.