PHOTOS: Aliso Niguel gets back on track with road victory over Segerstrom

Noah Shihad of Aliso Niguel puts up a shot as Christopher Arteaga of Segerstrom defends. (Photos courtesy Mark Bausman, For OC Sports Zone).

Aliso Niguel High School’s boys basketball team got back into the win column Friday night defeating Segerstrom 62-47 in a non-league game at Segerstrom.

The Wolverines (11-3) needed a win after losing to Tustin 54-40 Thursday night in the North-South Challenge at Tesoro. Aliso Niguel played well enough to win against a scrappy Segerstrom team (3-9) but Coach Keith Barnett was hoping for a better effort.

“It was ugly game, I don’t think we played very well,” Barnett said. “We had a couple guys make some shots but it wasn’t very good basketball. Defensively, I was a little disappointed because we’ve been doing a good job. We didn’t defend really hard tonight and offensively we didn’t pass the ball as well as we would have liked.”

Aliso Niguel was led by guard Noah Shihad, who had 22 points and six 3-pointers.

“He’s a really good shooter and he hadn’t a lot of opportunities, we have a couple guys down and he had a good chance to get into some rhythm and he had a real nice game and I’m real happy for him,” Barnett said.

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Segerstrom led by three points in the early minutes of the game before Aliso Niguel took control, moving out to a 32-22 halftime lead. Then the Wolverines outscored Segerstrom 15-10 in the third quarter with Shihad scoring 11 of the points to widen the margin.

Aliso Niguel had a 15-point lead with about four minutes left in the game and was able to hold off the Jaguars’ challenge.

“We started off poorly, we didn’t have many defensive stops, we could have played harder on defense, we went into the locker-room during halftime and our coach just talked to us and said we needed to pick the energy up and that’s what we did,” Shihad said. “We played together as a team, got stops and converted into offense and we were all good. It was a team effort.”

Aliso Niguel’s 6-5 front line players of Jayden Keogh and Garrett Trayer added 10 points each. Keogh came out of the game in the third quarter with an injury.

“Keogh had a nice first half, he’s had a recurring ankle issue the last two years so hopefully it’s not too bad,” Barnett said. “We have a really good group of kids, I don’t think we played particularly well tonight but we will take a win.”

Segerstrom was led by Christopher Arteaga and Heber Quero, who had 13 points each. Isaac Camerana added nine points on three 3-pointers.

“We play hard and we play well at times but Aliso is pretty big and (number) 35 is a good shooter and they had a kid (Shihad) that ended up getting 16 in the second half, they had some big moments and hit some big shots …. but I’m proud of my guys, they play hard, we’ve had a hard schedule so it’s going to be good to have a couple days off for them,” said Segerstrom Coach Eddie Andrade.

Segerstrom is back in action next Tuesday vs. Estancia in Estancia Coast Classic.

—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com