Watson Returns to Help Santa Ana Just at Right Time

Santa Ana’s 86-79 Orange Empire Conference victory over host Riverside can be explained with simple addition and subtraction.

Santa Ana benefited by the return of freshman forward Mark Watson, who played for the first time since having his appendix removed Dec. 23.

Riverside suffered because of the loss of sophomore forward and leading scorer Brian Collins, who missed his second consecutive game because of a broken jaw.

Watson contributed nine points but more importantly gave Santa Ana (17-4, 3-1) added depth inside.

Santa Ana also helped itself by making key free throws.

Santa Ana made 10 of its last 11 and was 28 of 33 in the game. Herbert Gracia made eight of eight, Mark Wulfemeyer was five for five, Greg Gray made four of four and Zac Fray was eight for 12.

Santa Ana, which is in a three-way tie for first place with Riverside and Saddleback, was down by 11 points early in the second half but went to a tight press that changed the game.

Wulfemeyer scored eight consecutive points to ignite the comeback and Santa Ana led, 67-57, with 8 minutes 10 seconds left.

But Riverside’s Mike Lewis, who scored 27 of his game-high 33 points in the second half, led the Tigers back. Riverside (16-7, 3-1) got within 74-73 when Lewis made two free throws with 2:25 left.

The key play down the stretch started when Riverside’s Raleigh Erickson missed a three-pointer and Gray (25 points) got the rebound. He pushed the ball to Wulfemeyer, who drove to the basket and made a layup despite being pushed hard to the floor.

Wulfemeyer (18 points) made the free throw right in front of the vocal Riverside band to put Santa Ana ahead, 77-73, with 1:09 left.

“They were fouling pretty hard,” Wulfemeyer said, “and it pumped me up to play harder. All the guys reached down tonight.”

In another men’s game:

Fullerton 68, Cypress 67--Ron Strange made a game-winning layup with 10 seconds left to lead visiting Fullerton (12-9, 2-2).

In a women’s game:

Orange Coast 71, Irvine Valley 54--The visiting Pirates (20-1, 4-0) won their 18th consecutive game. OCC, ranked second in the state, hosts No. 3 Santa Ana at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.