Capistrano Valley Clinches League Title

There were no excuses for El Toro this time.

Unlike two weeks ago, when Capistrano Valley escaped with an 86-81 triple-overtime victory, the No. 3-ranked Chargers had 6-foot-8 center Matt Green in the starting lineup Friday night. And this time they had home-court advantage.

But it still wasn’t enough as fourth-ranked Capistrano Valley edged the Chargers, 62-60, in front of an overflow crowd to clinch the South Coast League title. The Cougars (21-3, 8-0) lead second-place El Toro (21-3, 6-2) by two games with two to play.

Pete De Casas scored a game-high 26 points for Capistrano Valley, helping to neutralize El Toro’s inside advantage provided by Green, who had 23 points and 12 rebounds.

“Our plan was to get the ball inside to Green,” said El Toro Coach Todd Dixon. “We were very successful when we did that, but we also relied on the three-point shot too much and you can’t get in a shootout with those guys.”

The game was close throughout; the largest lead for either team was six points.

Trailing, 60-59, with just under a minute to play, El Toro missed several opportunities to reclaim the lead. The Chargers made just two of six free throws down the stretch and were unable to hit clutch shots from the floor.

Guard Ashkan Nazeri’s driving layup over Bryan Mallon was off-target and the ball bounced out of bounds. El Toro immediately fouled Matt Sweany, who calmly sank two free throws to make it 62-59 with 15 seconds left.

Nazeri raced up court and launched a desperation three-pointer that bounced off the front of the rim, but Green grabbed the offensive rebound and was fouled with five seconds left.

He made the first of his free throws, rebounded the miss on his second attempt and put up a fallaway jumper that came up short as time expired.

“We’ve won every close game this year and I have a lot of faith in these guys,” said Capistrano Valley Coach Brian Mulligan. “I think [El Toro] went to Green as much as they could and they did a nice job doing it.”