PHOTOS: Defending champ Cypress steps it up in second quarter and tops Tustin 49-34

Elijah Vaielua (left) and Christian Chai were among the standouts for Cypress Tuesday night. (Photos Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone)

Cypress High’s boys basketball team came alive in the second quarter and went on to defeat Tustin 49-34 in an Empire League opener Tuesday night at Tustin.

Tustin came out with an impressive first quarter and led 10-3, but Cypress, which is going for its third consecutive league title, went on a 17-0 run to start the second quarter and led 23-15 at halftime.

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“(Tustin Coach Ringo) Bossenmeyer is probably the best tactical coach in the league,” said Cypress Coach Derek Mitchell. “He gets his boys ready and they knew everything we were going to run and our boys weren’t used to that. For most of them, this is their first Empire League game so they were shellshocked.

“But they stuck with it, we grinded on defense which led to more transition offense for us.”

Cypress (12-5) had a balanced scoring attack led by Christian Chai with 11 points, Eddie Spencer with 10 and Kai Nagano with nine points. Senior forward Elijah Vaielula added seven points and was a force defensively and on the boards, collecting 18 rebounds.

“We usually shoot lights out but I guess today wasn’t our day, we were missing a lot of shots,” said Vaielula. “The second quarter we started driving and that’s what made us win and really good defense, fronting the bigs and just helping out and talking.”

In the third quarter, Tustin made an early run, cutting the lead to 25-19 with 6:26 left, but the Tillers couldn’t get much going after that. Cypress led 39-24 after three quarters and was in control after that.

Kyan Patel led Tustin (12-6) with nine points and Eli Nyeazi scored seven.

“We had the game right where we wanted it in terms of pace after the first quarter of play,” Bossenemeyer said. “However, our struggles offensively started affecting our attention to detail defensively.

“Obviously, it was a very difficult shooting night for some of our leading scorers. Kyan Patel was excellent on both ends of the floor and on the glass.”

Cypress gave notice that it will still challenge for the league title, despite the loss of some key players.

“That’s the goal,” Mitchell said. “Everybody is going to come for us, but we’re going to try and put up the best defensive stance we can to protect the title.”

It’s been a promisng season so far for the Centurions.

“We’re a good team, we don’t have one single scorer,” Mitchell said. “Eddie can get hot some games and Chai can get hot but most of it is a team collection. We try to put guys in the right spots so they can make their shots.”

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