Sanders Gives Fullerton a Jump-Start to Victory

Ben Sanders showed off his quickness as well as his ability to pay attention to other teams Friday in helping Fullerton to a 90-81 victory over Irvine Valley in a first-place showdown in the Orange Empire Conference men’s basketball race.

Sanders started the second half with a pair of steals and dunks on Irvine Valley’s first two possessions. His second dunk gave Fullerton a three-point lead after trailing by as many as 18 in the first half.

Sanders said he read that Irvine Valley led Santa Ana at the half Wednesday only to lose by 26 so he wanted to do something to get Fullerton excited right away.

“It seemed like they just threw it to me,” Sanders said of the steals. “I was just trying to get something going.” Sanders finished with 22 points, five assists and six steals, five in the second half.

“What Ben did in that first minute was phenomenal,” said Fullerton Coach Dieter Horton. “What he did was just awesome.”

Fullerton (19-7, 7-3) is tied for first with Santa Ana with four games left and Irvine Valley dropped a game back. Santa Ana is at Fullerton Feb. 18.

Irvine Valley (18-9, 6-4) came out strong after a poor showing in an 87-61 loss to Santa Ana Wednesday. The Lasers built an 18-point lead--34-16 with 7 minutes 25 seconds left in the first half--but things went downhill fast.

Fullerton scored the next 15 points and eventually trailed, 40-39, at the break. Sanders’ early display in the half helped the Hornets eventually take an 18-point lead.

“We just had to weather the storm,” Horton said. “Once we started to get stops, that got our transition game going.”

Erick Ashe scored 21 and Edwin Charles and Jamon Venable each had 15 for Fullerton, which made 35 of 44 free throws. Damion Raibon had 23 for Irvine Valley, which made 27 of 32 free throws. There were 51 fouls.

In other conference games:

Cypress 79, Golden West 67--Mark Perry scored 21 points and had four rebounds for Golden West (6-20, 1-9). Ryan Tenpas scored 16 points to lead visiting Cypress (13-14, 4-6).

Santa Ana 80, Riverside 56--Lohnnie Tape scored 32 points and had 14 rebounds for Santa Ana. Jehovany Barraza and Mark Saukkola each scored 12 points for the Dons (18-11, 7-3). Barraza also had 12 rebounds.

Brian Hooks had 17 points and 17 rebounds for Riverside (19-11, 5-5).