Breakers never give up

The Laguna Beach High boys’ and girls’ basketball teams faced tough tasks this past week as they tried to stay alive in CIF Southern Section playoff action.

For the Laguna girls, the season came to an end Saturday in Santa Fe Springs with a second-round Division 4AA loss at St. Paul.

For the Laguna boys, their season ended Tuesday with a second-round Division 4AA loss to Studio City Harvard-Westlake.

In a battle for a Division 4AA semifinal spot Tuesday at Dugger Gym, Laguna played Harvard-Westlake tough but the Wolverines, the No. 2 seed in the tournament, pulled away in the second half to gain a 72-57 victory. The win sent the Wolverines (21-7), the third-place team from the Mission League, on to a Friday semifinal matchup against Notre Dame/Sherman Oaks.

Harvard-Westlake also had stopped a Laguna team in the quarterfinal round of the playoffs three years ago.

Laguna reached the quarterfinal round of postseason play for the third time in four years.

The Orange Coast League champion Breakers took a 15-14 lead after the opening quarter but Harvard-Westlake parlayed a few Laguna turnovers into a four-point swing late in the second quarter which helped the Wolverines establish the lead.

Harvard-Westlake held a 33-28 halftime advantage.

“I thought we came out and did what we had to do to compete with a better team,” Laguna Coach Bret Fleming said. “We played great team ball. In the second half, [Harvard-Westlake] turned up the pressure and forced us into turnovers. We had some problems with our defensive transition that we hadn’t had all year. Turnovers and missed shots really hurt us in the second half.

“What pleased me was that the kids never gave up. They competed to the end. I was proud of their effort and am proud of the season they had.”

Laguna sophomore Blake Burzell hit four three-point shots and poured in a game-high 30 points and “played really well,” Fleming said. In their final games as Breakers, senior guards Isaac Wulff scored 15 points and Darin Richardson 10 points, and senior center Nick Rahder had two points.

Laguna, which began postseason play Feb. 17 with a 50-41 home-court win over Covina, reached the quarterfinal round by recording a big second-round win Feb. 19 at Atascadero. The Breakers jumped out to a 19-6 first-quarter lead on the Greyhounds, extended their advantage to 20 points through three quarters and ended up winning by that margin, 52-32.

Richardson led four Breakers in double-figures with 15 points. Burzell scored 12 points, Wulff 10 points, Rahder six points, sophomore guard Charlie Rounaghi three points, and senior guard Spencer Wong, junior guard Karam Jones and sophomore forward Adam Armstrong scored two points apiece.

“It was an awesome game for us,” Fleming said. “We played really well across the board and absolutely ‘D-ed-up’ on them.

“We got a huge boost from our baseball team which was playing up north. [Atascadero] had a big crowd, but our baseball team and their parents showed up for our game and they were loud and supportive. They really gave us a lift.”

The Breakers, who won 12 of their final 14 games, turned in a 23-7 season. It’s the fourth time in the last five years that the program has had a 20-plus win season.

“We preached to the kids to show up every day to get better every day, to never miss an opportunity to get better over the course of the year,” Fleming said. “The kids did that, and I thought they had a really good year.”

—

•After starting postseason play with a victory over La Puente, the Laguna girls’ basketball team took on St. Paul in a Saturday afternoon matchup with a berth in the quarterfinals on the line. The Swordsmen pulled away late to earn a 52-20 victory, snapping the Breakers’ eight-game winning streak in the process.

The Breakers, co-champions of the Orange Coast League, took a quick, 5-0 lead but the deeper and taller Swordsmen regrouped and went on into halftime holding a 25-13 lead. That score stood until the three-minute mark of the third quarter. Then, the Swordsmen, an at-large team from the Del Rey League, went on a 12-2 run to end the quarter.

St. Paul has since defeated St. Monica Catholic to advance to Saturday’s semifinal round.

Senior guard/forward Jackie Cenan and senior forward Alexandra Lewis scored 10 and eight points, respectively, and senior guard Ashley Brown had two points, in their final games.

“We knew going in that it was going to be a Herculean task just to stay with them,” Laguna Coach Mark Lewis said. “The girls came out inspired and playing well especially defensively and on the defensive glass. Offensively, we struggled the entire game. They had scouted us against La Puente and were well-prepared for our offensive sets and movements. They had defenders hanging all over Alex [Lewis] to prevent any good looks from deep, and ran people at Jackie [Cenan] all afternoon to prevent her drives to the basket and finishes at the rim.

“It was a tough afternoon for us, but I was proud of the way the girls fought and battled particularly for the first 2 1/2 quarters. Very proud of the effort. [St. Paul] just had too many horses for us to contain.”

The Breakers dominated La Puente, 60-28, in a first-round game Feb. 18 at Dugger Gym. They posted a rare shutout by holding the Warriors (Miramonte League at-large) scoreless in the opening quarter in racing to an 18-0 lead.

Cenan matched the scoring output of the Warriors by powering her way for 28 points. Alexandra Lewis drained six three-point shots and scored 19 points. Junior guard/forward Rachel Kenney had nine points and junior forward Marissa Lee and senior forward Elise Pontius posted two points each.

“Defensively, we were solid throughout the game,” Mark Lewis said. “Our goal is always to hold teams to 30 points or less, and we did that.

“Offensively, the game was sluggish at first. Once we established the 18-0 first-quarter lead, we kept our foot on the gas and were never threatened. We were well prepared for their triangle-and-two defense and scrappy style from the many games we played in league. Alex [Lewis] and Jackie [Cenan] faced numerous triangle-and-two sets throughout league play, so when we installed a few new sets and some wrinkles off our existing sets during league play, we were more than ready to handle what La Puente threw at us.

“It was a good first-round win. Nice to get a comfortable victory in the first round.”

The Breakers compiled a 20-8 record in a season that began with a scrimmage at Staples Center, including a trip to Hawaii that resulted in a tournament title, traveled to Catalina where they defeated Avalon, and earlier this month, included a huge victory at OCL rival Estancia.

“With the adversities we faced this season, I believe we achieved quite a lot,” he said of the team’s record-setting season. “Perhaps we even over-achieved. After losing significant players from last season’s team to pursue other interests and then losing two key players to ACL injuries for the second year in a row, I think we did really well. As a coach, I adapted to our new personnel for the season with a new style on the offensive end.

“When [senior guard] Amy Nygaard and [junior guard] Nicole Davidson went down with their ACL injuries, we changed our rotations, our starting lineups, and our offensive sets mid-stream. Not only did we maintain our pace, we actually went on our record-breaking win streak. I was proud of the way the girls responded and adapted to a lot of new stuff I was throwing at them. And then the piece de resistance, we went into Estancia’s gym with a gem of a game plan and the girls executed it to perfection. What resulted was a thrashing of Estancia and a co-league championship. The league title was the first since 2005 and only the second in the program’s history.”