Woodbridge Wins With Defense

Woodbridge, which lost two home games this season in the Irvine World News boys’ basketball tournament, used a balanced offense and a tight defense to reclaim its court Thursday night with a 63-55 nonleague victory over Foothill.

The Warriors (8-4), who led by as many as 18 points in the third quarter, maintained a double-digit lead for most of the second half, then stifled a fourth-quarter rally by Foothill (6-5).

“This is our home court, but we’ve already taken a couple of losses here,” Woodbridge Coach John Halagan said. “Our guys were a little ticked off about that.”

The Warriors did it with defense Thursday, shutting down Foothill’s Chad Bigler, who had scored 30, 27 and 24 points in the Knights’ last three games.

Bigler was one for 15 from the field and finished with six points.

“That’s a pretty good player,” Halagan said. “We just kept running guys at him. Defensively we’ve been pretty consistent all year. We have our guys believing in our system on defense. We’re still trying to get them to buy into our offense.

“There’s times when we look really good on offense, but there’s times when we’re throwing the ball off the gym wall.”

Woodbridge seized control of the game with a 9-2 run to open the second quarter for a 27-12 lead and held a 37-24 lead at halftime.

The Warriors extended it to 42-24 on a three-pointer by Doug Koeller and a baseline jump shot by Danny Lambert to open the second half, but Foothill did not go quietly.

Josh Scott scored eight of his 10 points in the fourth quarter and Foothill’s pressure defense forced six Woodbridge turnovers in the period, helping the Knights get as close as eight points.

“We knew this would be a tough game,” Halagan said. “I give our kids credit for maintaining a big lead against a good ballclub.”

Koeller led the Warriors with 12 points. Lambert and Regan Arroyo each had 10.

Alex Rasmussen had 25 points to pace Foothill.