PHOTOS: Esperanza comes out strong in second half to upset first place Crean Lutheran

Alexa Muller of Esperanza is guarded by Crean Lutheran’s Jane Hewitt Tuesday night. (Photos courtesy Crean Lutheran Shutterbugs, Howard Lyon and John Luciano).

Esperanza High School’s girls basketball team is almost back to full strength after battling illness and injuries and it helped Tuesday as the Aztecs rallied for a 58-46 road victory over Crestview League leader Crean Lutheran.

To see the slide show, click on the first photo:

The Crean Lutheran (20-5, 5-1) squad celebrated senior night and was hoping to clinch at least a share of the league title with the victory, but will have to wait another game to do that.

Esperanza (17-9, 4-2) avenged a 62-43 home loss to Crean Lutheran on Jan. 10 with a strong second half. After trailing 33-31 at halftime, the Aztecs came out firing in the second half led by Charlotte Muller, who led her team with 15 points and her sister Alexa Muller who had 13 points.

Both players are juniors.

Charlotte Muller sank three 3-pointers and Alexa Muller hit six free throws in the fourth quarter.

Crean Lutheran was led by Micaela Hanning who had 18 points and Sydnee Norwood who had 12 points.

“We’ve gone through a lot of adversity this year with all our injuries and illness,” said Esperanza Coach Jimmy Valverde. “We still had some girls sick trying to suck it up and play tonight but we have not had a full team in one game all year long. But the kids keep playing hard and learning, we have four freshmen on the team, the seniors, the juniors, everybody is doing a great job.

“I’m so proud of them sticking together and trying to learn and get better every game, the other day we played St. Anthony’s and had a great game and they put on a full game tonight. We have a lot of potential but a lot still to learn with a young team like this. That was my original lineup tonight, it was the first time all season long (with a full lineup).

“It was nice to be able to plug people in. Great team win, Crean Lutheran is a great team, a great coach, a class act, so this is something we can be very proud of.”

Esperanza had a 36-35 lead after three quarters and continued to build on the lead in the fourth quarter. The Aztecs eventually moved out to a 53-33 lead on a 3-pointer by Charlotte Muller with 1:44 left and Crean Lutheran was unable to cut into the lead.

“Reality check, we’ve been playing inconsistent too much and it just felt like our mental toughness wasn’t there,” said Crean Lutheran Coach Kyle Rouse.

“Credit to Esperanza, they couldn’t miss and they made some great plays. But the biggest thing was 50-50 balls, hustle plays, oboards (offensive rebounds) and they beat us in all of those categories. Credit to them, they played great.”

Rouse said the Saints should have been up by more than two points at halftime, but didn’t follow the scout plan.

“We never don’t miss up a scout (report), we execute almost every time,” Rouse said. “And today we played almost a whole half not following what we worked on in the last two days in scout video.”

Both Esperanza and Crean Lutheran are headed to the CIF playoffs. Crean Lutheran, with a one game lead in the standings, finishes league play Friday at Sunny Hills and Tuesday at Canyon as it tries to lock up its second straight league title.

Esperanza plays at El Dorado Friday and hosts Sunny Hills Tuesday.

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