Woodbridge falls behind early and loses to Cajon 62-42 in Tustin Holiday Classic

Eugene Ku of Woodbridge applies defensive pressure against Cajon Thursday. (Photo Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone)

The struggles for Woodbridge High’s boys basketball team continued Thursday evening in the opening round of the Tustin Holiday Classic.

The Warriors lost to Cajon 62-42 at Tustin.

Nygle Williams scored 22 points and Steven Mimpiya seven points to lead the Warriors (1-12)

“Cajon, even though they’re young, they’re extremely athletic and they have four guys on the perimter who are tough to handle off the bounce and they can all shoot,…it just took us the better part of a half to settle into that level of athleticism and guys who are quick off the bounce,” said Woodbridge Coach John Halagan.

Halagan remained upbeat about the team’s chances.

“This is a very coachable group and it has been a tough year but they’re learning and we’re learning and we’re playing good teams,” he said. “We just have to get better.”

Halagan said he saw some encouraging signs in the game against Cajon (8-4).

“I was really pleased with the play of our bigs,” Halagan said. “Certainly, Nygle Williams has been our best player. Eli Hill has given us some really good guard minutes. He’s done a really good job handling the ball for us in the last few games and setting us up.

“We just have to get through our illness. We’ve been sick, we’ve been injured and we’ve had some bad luck. And a lot of the bad luck that has come our way, we kind of do it to ourselves too. The guys are aware of that.”

Turnovers sub-par shooting have plagued Woodbridge so far, Halagan said.

“We go long droughts without scoring and when you’re giving away possessions on top of it, it’s just tough, because we haven’t shot the ball well this year,” he said. “So it makes it tough on our bigs. We haven’t shown the ability to consistently stretch the floor which means our bigs have really had to operate in a lot of traffic.”

Woodbridge continued play Friday with an 11:30 a.m., game against Long Beach Wilson. Cajon continued into the championship bracket with an 8:30 p.m. game against Squalcum, Wash.

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