Irvine’s basketball players gather for a post-game meeting with Coach Harry Meussner after Saturday’s win. (Photo: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).
Irvine High School’s boys basketball team put together a strong second half Saturday evening to defeat Saugus 48-37 in the California Live Tournament at Woodbridge.
Irvine, which won its first two games in the tournament, moved on to the semifinals in the Destination Irvine bracket to face Lakewood Saturday, June 17 at 8:30 p.m. at Woodbridge’s main gym. The Vaqueros defeated St. Margaret’s 68-45 Friday night in the opener at Irvine.
There are 163 teams playing in 10 divisions in the inaugural tournament.
Saugus jumped out to a 10-point lead in the opening minutes against Irvine.
Irvine and Saugus were tied 24-24 at halftime. Saugus opened up an early 3-point lead in the second, 16-minute half before Irvine moved out to a 41-34 lead with 5:29 left.
Irvine’s 6-5 sophomore center Cooper Stearns had another solid game, leading the Vaqueros with 21 points. Sophomore Ali Dal added eight points and senior Jaesang An had five points for Irvine.
“It was great, what I’m excited about this team is defensively they’re locked in, they play for each other, they rotate really well, we’re constantly putting a defender in their face and making them think about what they have to do,” said Irvine Coach Harry Meussner.
“I know right now, offensively we’re still working things out and once the offense compliments the defense, we’re going to get even better from here, but I love where we’re at playing basketball in June.”
Stearns led Irvine’s strong second half effort, dishing off passing and rebounding in addition to scoring. He was excited about the win.
“We were getting beat down pretty badly in the first eight minutes of the game, we were down 14-4,” Stearns said. “In my mind I was saying, ‘we can’t be doing this.’ Then we started to comeback, I got subbed out, our bench guys started to get into the game and bring a lot of energy and ultimately we made a run back to all square going into halftime.
“Then, us as a team, we talked and said, ‘we got to run our offense more and we got to hit our cutters and don’t settle and then that second half, our supporting cast like Jackson (Shaffer), Taewon (Kim), Parth (Gupta), Jaesang (An)and (Ryan) Bugay all played outstanding defense ….. and with them getting all those stops, steals especially, really helped us get out to a lead.
“I thought we were really gritty and tough today, slowly chipping away at them and our defense was just ferocious, our talking and our on-ball pressure and most importantly, I felt our rebounding and our off-ball denying was really great, not by myself, but by our guards.”
Lakewood defeated Woodbridge 66-51 Saturday night. Woodbridge moved on to play a 7:30 p.m. game vs. Saugus on court number two at Woodbridge.
The tournament wraps up with the finals on Sunday, June 18, at Irvine High School. Admission is $10 and parking $10.
For brackets, scores and schedules of the 10 divisions, click here:
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—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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