PHOTOS: Aliso Niguel’s comeback falls short in CIF Division 3 final vs. Murrieta Mesa

Aliso Niguel’s Jayden Mysin drives the baseline against Murrieta Mesa’s Carlito Christian Saturday. (Photos courtesy John Luciano, For OC Sports Zone).

Aliso Niguel’s boys basketball team battled back from a rough first half and made it close at the end, but couldn’t complete the comeback Saturday afternoon against Murrieta Mesa, which notched a 65-58 victory in the CIF Division 3 final at Toyota Arena in Ontario.

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Murrieta Mesa won its first CIF title in program history. It was the first time in the CIF playoffs for the Rams. Aliso Niguel was trying to bring home the first CIF title for the program since 2005.

Murrieta Mesa led 38-22 at halftime but Aliso Niguel (24-9) made a run in the fourth quarter cutting the lead seven points on two free throws by Miles Iribarne with 2:38 left. But that was as close as the Wolverines could get;

“I thought we came out with the right mindset to start the game and I thought we were doing a nice job of moving the ball,” said Aliso Niguel Coach Keith Barnett. “And then we hit a tough patch offensively at the mid to the end of the first quarter and we stopped competing on the defensive end to what we needed to do in the second quarter and they started making shots and started getting around us.

“They made some big shots and built a pretty sizeable lead in the first half. That was tough for us to fight but I thought my guys showed a lot of grit and determination in not quitting, that’s who they are, they’re really great kids and they work really hard. I know they were disappointed in that first half, it wasn’t reflective of who we’ve been the last four or five weeks. We just didn’t have enough time to get all the way back but I’m real proud of them.”

Jayden Mysin scored 18 points and had six rebounds and Collin Tjin and Wyatt Richmond each had 10 point to lead Aliso Niguel. Richmond also had 10 rebounds. Jay Keys added eight points.

Jagger Saul scored 18 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead Murrieta Mesa (23-10). Kingston Saul added nine points for the Rams.

“I think the school has been open about 18 years and I told these boys from spring when I took the job what we were going to accomplish, I set goals high ….. it was a good mixture of guys who were returning. Today’s game was interesting, to say the least, came out hot, we got a big lead, got a little scary for me but these guys know how to finish games, we’ve been finishing games all year,” said Murrieta Mesa Coach Chris Featherly.

“I think they started believing and I’m really happy for them.”

Murrieta Mesa made 48 percent of its field goal attempts while Aliso Niguel made 39 percent.

Mysin, a senior, took the loss hard.

“These are my boys, we fought, that first half, it was ugly and maybe we were feeling the pressure a little bit, but we deserved to be here and we deserved to compete and I’m just proud of the boys for climbing back to a single digit game in the fourth quarter and making it fun,” Mysin said.

Both teams will advance to the CIF So Cal Regionals next week.

“I’m excited to move on to regionals, I know we’ve got some stuff to work on, I think we fought pretty hard, we struggled in the first half and we can’t have that in state, we got to make sure we’re good all the way through, and just keep playing better defense and the shots will fall,” said Tjin.

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