Woodbridge’s Stephen Lamp is defended by Cooper Stearns of Irvine Tuesday night. (Photos: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).
Woodbridge High School’s boys basketball team held off a late threat by Irvine to capture a 44-43 Pacific Coast League victory over the Vaqueros Tuesday night on senior night at Woodbridge.
“They’re tough, they’re a good team,” said Woodbridge Coach Steve Scoggin. “He’s (Coach Harry Meussner) done a great job of bringing that program back around.”
One of the Woodbridge seniors, Ethan Fu, came up big with 15 points, including a critical 3-pointer with 1:30 left that trimmed Irvine’s lead to 43-42 and helped the Warriors rally for the win.
“It was great, the bank was open today and we played as a team at the end,” said Fu referring to the 3-pointer that banked in. “All that mattered was defense at the end, it wasn’t really offense, it was mostly defense.”
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Another senior, Yousef Alsaad, put the Warriors ahead 44-43 with 1:08 left in the game.
“Our guys stepped up, Ethan Fu on senior night played the way a senior is supposed to play,” Scoggin said.
Irvine had a final chance to go ahead late. After calling timeout with 12 seconds left, the Vaqueros worked the ball inside to their star center Cooper Stearns, who was double teamed and could not get a shot off. He passed the ball to the outside but the Vaqueros were unable to get a shot off before time expired.
Stearns was the game’s leading scorer with 27 points. Daniel Shin had seven points for Irvine and Alsaad added 12 and Stephen Lamp nine points for Woodbridge (11-11, 3-0).
Irvine (13-10, 1-1) was hoping to pull out a big win on the road.
“It’s a tough loss and a tough pill to swallow,” said Meussner. “Woodbridge made one more play than us and credit to them for coming out fired up and playing for their seniors.”
Irvine was able to battle back after trailing by three points going into the final stanza.
“I think ulitimately it was all five guys on the floor playing defense,” Meussner said. “That’s what got us back in the game and gave us the lead down the stretch and then we just needed to make one more play and these things happen and we’re going to learn from it and get better and go back to work and get one on Friday.”
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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