Newport Harbor wins fourth in a row and moves on to semifinals of Grizzly Invitational

Robbie Spooner scored 18 points to lead Newport Harbor past El Dorado 58-25.

Newport Harbor’s boys basketball team won its fourth game out of the gates, defeating El Dorado 58-25 Thursday night in a quarterfinal round game at the Grizzly Invitational to move into the championship semifinals Friday night at 7:45 p.m. against Villa Park at Godinez.

The Sailors (4-0) led 21-12 at halftime, then settled the issue with a 7-0 run in the third quarter to hand El Dorado (4-1) its first loss.

“They play hard, I thought we did a great job defensively the entire game,” said Newport Harbor Coach Robert Torribio. “Obviously, when the ball goes in, it’s a much easier game for you but as long as you’re playing D and doing the best you can defensively, you will be all right.

“It’s a great group of kids and they play hard, which is all we can really ask of them.”

Leading the way was junior Robbie Spooner who had 18 points and made five 3-pointers.

“Spooner has been great for us,” Torribio said. “He’s only a junior and played varsity with us last year and played a lot of minutes off the bench. It’s nice to have him starting for us right now and he plays hard. He’s a very competitive young man.”

Spooner finished strong, scoring seven points in the final quarter to help the Sailors pull away.

“My team does a great job distributing the ball,” Spooner said. “We’re all really unselfish, we stress that a lot and my teammates do a great job of passing it around and getting good shots.”

Dayne Chalmers added 12 points for Newport Harbor.

Riley Tomita led Coach Ryan Mounce’s El Dorado team with 7 points.

HERE’S THE FULL TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE FOR FRIDAY’S SEMIFINALS

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