Irvine survives wild ending against Sage Hill, wins overtime battle in PCL tourney

Irvine players head to the court to celebrate PCL tournament win over Sage Hill Tuesday. (PHOTOS: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).

It was a wild finish to the Sage Hill vs. Irvine Pacific Coast League boys basketball tournament third place game Tuesday night at Woodbridge.

Irvine, which had already secured third place and one of four CIF automatic playoff berths, held on for a 58-55 overtime victory over a determined Sage Hill team.

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The thrilling end of regulation had fans from both teams standing, cheering and buzzing.

With the game tied, Sage Hill worked the ball to Carson Ellis who scored a close-range shot to put the Lightning (10-17) ahead by two points with about 10 seconds left.

But Irvine quickly advanced the ball up the court to Ronin Scheinblum had a putback basket with about a second left in regulation to tie the game and help Irvine (17-11) send the game into overtime.

After the basket, officials conferred briefly before ruling that the basket counted and the game went into overtime. (Go to X, @ocsportszone) for video of the play).

Scheinblum was one of many back-ups who saw playing time for the Vaqueros as Coach Harry Meussner opted to get all 15 players in. Thiago Ida had 15 points, regular Holden Stearns 12 points in 12 minutes and Francisco Martinez 12 points to lead Irvine.

Starting guard Jalen Yim hit two 3-pointers in the first quarter but he and most starters saw limited playing time after that.

Meussner said before the game, the plan was to give his back-ups as much time as possible and the Irvine starters time was limited.

“Incredible team effort, we played every guy, we had 15 healthy out of our 18, we have a big roster this year,” said Meussner after the game. “So many of these guys including Ronin Scheinblum sacrifice playing scout team, doing the dirty work in practice, being prepared for the scout and not playing the minutes.

“So we wanted to pay them back tonight with third (place) locked in. I want to give a shoutout to all the guys who came off the bench, Ronin, Shawn Rahimi hit those free throws (late in the game) and there was good defense in the end. I thought Ian Lin played great down the stretch, Tiago played great. Credit to the Vaqueros up and down the roster, That’s the way you want to go into CIF, I’m just so proud of the boys.

“There’s nothing more important than the togetherness of a team and we’re healthy for the most part and excited about the opportunity (for the playoffs) ahead when we see the brackets on Saturday.”

Meussner said that Stearns was “efficient, he has really grown as a basketball player. He gets to his spots which I think is a signal of a real veteran varsity role and he has really growing into that role for us and see what he continues to do in CIF and beyond as a senior.”

Jaiden McLeod (12 points), Tre Cradle (11 points) and Everett Yun (11 points) led Coach Elijah Gaines’ Sage Hill team (10-17). Cradle left the game in the third quarter with an injury and did not return.

Ellis added nine points, seven coming in the fourth quarter.

Irvine led by four points at halftime and by two points going into the fourth quarter.

Northwood clinched the fourth automatic CIF playoff berth from the league with a victory over University in the earlier game Tuesday at Woodbridge.

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