Tesoro stifles Tillers’ rally to win 61-52 and captures third place at Tustin Holiday Tourney

Kaden Garrett (left) and Matt DeAngelo of Tesoro were named all-tournament. (Photo Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone)

Tesoro’s boys basketball team bounced back Monday night with a hard-fought 61-52 victory over Tustin to capture third place in the 16-team tournament.

Guard Matt DeAngelo led the Titans with 34 points, 21 coming in the second half. Kyle Ritscher added 10 points and Mike Mahlen had eight points. Both DeAngelo and Kaden Garrett, who also had a strong week, were named to the all-tournament team.

Tustin (13-5) had a 29-28 halftime lead before Tesoro got rolling in the third quarter. The Tillers were led by Jason Naranjo who had 11 points and three 3-pointers and Ben Ahinaquah, who had 10 points.

Tesoro may (13-3) may have had some added incentive after losing to Mission Viejo 60-55 Saturday night in the semifinals.

Tesoro Coach Steve Garrett was pleased with Monday’s effort.

“I like these last two games, they were very league like,” he said. “People are zereong in on things we’re doing so we have to do secondary and third things. Coach (Ringo Bossenmeyer) does a good job.

“They play good half-court defense. These are the type of games that are going to prepare us for league. I thought our guys did some good stuff defensively too in the second half. I thought Tyler Mirza did a great job defending the big kid down low, I thought Kyle Ritscher did a good job on top defending. They did a really good job defensively of disrupting and anchoring us down there.

“Points are great, but what are you doing to help the team win when you’re not scoring, that’s always the question for me. And I like that Mike Mahlen, who normally hit some shots and he hit some shots tonight, played a little bit better defense tonight. I’m pleased with the second half, holding them to 29 points at halftime, we got real stingy with our D.”

Tesoro had a 45-40 lead going into the fourth quarter but Tustin kept hanging around, cutting the margin to 50-46 on a 3-pointer by Bradley Burdick.

However DeAngelo knocked down some key shots down the stretch to seal the win for the Titans.

DeAngelo said he and his teammates were a bit upset about losing to Mission Viejo on Saturday.

“That kind of fueled us for the day and it fueled me specifically so I had a pretty good night,” DeAngelo said. “We started off kind of slow but we picked up over time. The week overall, it was a good week. We played some good teams, got some good wins and we definitely improved as a team.”

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