Antelope Valley Socks It to Them

Marlon Tisdel, the Antelope Valley College point guard, sported this message on one of his knee-high socks Saturday night: “State Bound.”

Whether Tisdel and the Marauders make it to the state championships in mid-March remains to be seen, but they definitely are headed for Orange County next week.

The Marauders advanced to the second round of the Southern California regional playoffs with a 72-64 victory over Santa Barbara City in a first-round game at home.

Antelope Valley (24-8), ranked 18th in the state, will travel to Saddleback (26-5), ranked No. 6, for a second-round game Wednesday night. Saddleback pounded Oxnard, 89-66, in its first-round game.

Tisdel, a 5-foot-10 freshman from East High in Memphis, Tenn., was instrumental in helping the advance. He scored a season-high 16 points to go with five assists and four steals. Tisdel sparked a second-half comeback.

“Marlon played under control,” said Newton Chelette, Antelope Valley coach. “When Marlon plays under control, he is as good a point guard as there is. He made some good decisions, obviously.”

Especially when the Marauders needed it most.

The Marauders trailed, 40-30, at halftime and 51-43 with 11 minutes 44 seconds to play when Tisdel banked in a running hook shot that seemed to fire up his teammates.

A few minutes later, guard Brandon McIntire made a long three-point basket from the right wing that gave the Marauders their first lead, 54-52.

Guard Troy Coutee increased the cushion to 57-52 with a three-point rainbow moments later and the Marauders didn’t trail again.

“We started kind of slow but we picked it up in the second half,” said Tisdel, who has tonsillitis. “We didn’t want to be out of the tournament this soon.”

Antelope Valley tinkered with disaster in the first 20 minutes. The Marauders made only 13 of 32 shots (40.6%) and only one of nine three-point attempts. They also made only three of eight free throws.

Forward Orville Turner, second in the state in scoring with a 27.1-point average, scored only 10 points in the first half and finished with 17.

The Vaqueros (15-18) did a good job of keeping Turner and others from penetrating.

But Antelope Valley came up with 16 steals and repeatedly disrupted the Santa Barbara offense with a matchup defense.