Trabuco Hills holds off late rally by Edison to win 52-48 at Beach Bash Tournament

Senior guard Kelvin Cabrera led Trabuco Hills Wednesday against Edison.

Trabuco Hills boys basketball team held off a late charge by Edison to capture a 52-48 victory over the Chargers Wednesday afternoon in the Beach Bash Tournament at Corona del Mar.

The Mustangs (3-1) were led by Kelvin Cabrera who had 21 points and Vinny Zingales who scored 13 points. Senior guard Kaden Headington led Edison (5-3) with 23 points.

“We’ve seen number two (Kaden Headington) on film and that kid is quite a gamer,” said Trabuco Hills Coach Sean Sullens. “He’s as good a competitor as well as a basketball player and athlete as you’re going to see for a six foot guard. He does a great job.

“Last year we won those games, two years ago, when this group were sophomores, we didn’t win those games. We blew a 10-point lead here in the last minute against Corona del Mar. People might look at it and say, ‘you only won by four,’ but as far as we’re concerned, we survived and did enough down the stretch to get it. Would we like to keep it at 10? Of course, every coach would.”

Trabuco Hills led 34-27 after three quarters but Edison battled back, cutting the lead to 49-45 on a 3-pointer by Headington with 55 seconds left. However, Zingales sank two free throws on the next trip to put the Mustangs ahead by six.

Headington made three free throws with 11 seconds remaining to make it 52-48 but Trabuco Hills was able to hold on.

“I think we’ve played them three of the last four years here and it’s great for us,” Sullens said. “That’s a great game for us to come and play a team that is that well coached and that talented.”

Leading the way for the Mustangs was Cabrera, who had 11 points in the second half.

“We had a rough stretch in the first half, we started off slow in the first quarter but we found our rhythm and finished the game,” said Cabrera, a senior. “We gave a little more effort (in the second half) and our defense picked up as the game went on.”

Jack Horton added 11 points for Edison, which lost another key player, Jackie Kwok, with an ankle injury in the first quarter. Two other Chargers, Aiden Garnett and Connor Collins, have also been sidelined with ankle injuries. It’s not known when the two will return.

“I thought our kids battled hard,” Edison Coach Rich Boyce said. “I thought our defense was fantastic. Obviously, Jackie getting hurt put us really shorthanded. But I thought the kids just played as hard as they possibly could and it was just a great effort by them.

“We made a few shots when we had to, we just couldn’t get a stop when we had to. I think our second quarter was what hurt us; we had too many turnovers and we missed shots. I was just really proud of the kids. I thought they played really hard.”

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