Tustin Goes to the Whip to Pull Out a Victory Over Loara

Perhaps Andy Ground was being coy when he said he couldn’t recall if it happened, but the tongue-lashing administered by the Tustin coach was still fresh in the mind of Tiller guard Kenny Crabb when he took the floor Wednesday night at Loara High.

“Coach wasn’t happy with the way we have played and we were doubting ourselves, so he gave us that sweet speech,” Crabb said.

“It was one of those coach-player things. You just had to be there, but he basically said if we didn’t show up to play, we were going to get whooped.”

Well, the Tillers struggled again, but they regrouped long enough in the fourth quarter to pull out a 58-50 victory in a Southern Section Division II-AA wild-card game. Tustin (20-7) advances to play at third-seeded Inglewood (19-5) Friday night.

Wednesday’s game was sloppy. The teams combined for 45 turnovers and an assorted bag of air balls. Loara was 13 of 22 on free throws ; Tustin made 14 of 25. The play was rugged too.

“It’s been that way all season long,” said Tustin forward Chris Chatman, who scored 12 points. “We were really nervous coming here and we have a lot of underclassmen who have never been in a playoff game before, and that made it worse.”

Loara Coach Ed Prange said Tustin wore down the Saxons and in doing so denied Loara a school-record 21st victory.

“They are a very athletic team and we like to run, we have all year, so we weren’t going to change now,” Prange said. “Tustin is so deep. They have 10 guys to sub in and they don’t lose anything. We don’t have that many guys.”

Crabb, thanks to four three-point baskets, led all scorers with 18 points. Forward Martin Banda led Loara with 13 points and had nine rebounds. Guards Brian Brennan and Mike Eshelman scored 12 and 11 points.

The teams seemed to suffer from a power failure in the first half.

First, a light show during player introductions knocked out power in the Loara gym and left the estimated crowd of 700 in the dark for several minutes. Then, the teams combined to scored just 13 points in the quarter.

“The teams were very tight in that first half,” Prange said. “Our Achilles’ heel has been that we can’t shoot well. We have to rely on our defense to create things for us.”

Loara held a five-point lead with 20 seconds left in the first half, but Crabb’s third three-point basket brought Tustin to within 25-23.

The Tillers scored the first five points of the third quarter, but Loara pulled within a point several times and regained the lead, 43-41, at the outset of the fourth quarter on a three-point basket by Brennan.

Tustin took the lead back for good on a 12-foot jumper by Crabb.