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Irvine players and coaches after winning the Rancho Alamitos Tournament title Saturday. (PHOTOS: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).
After coming up short in the finals of the Rancho Alamitos Tournament the past two years, Irvine High School’s boys basketball team completed the mission Saturday night defeating Tustin 44-32 in the tourney championship game.
Tournament MVP Cooper Stearns scored 17 points and grabbed 14 rebounds to lead the Vaqueros (5-1).
Irvine lost to Tustin and Royal in two previous trips to the tourney finals so had some motivation going into Saturday’s final.
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“We’ve been building getting a little bit better every day,” said Irvine Coach Harry Meussner. “I’m now in my fourth year and a lot of these young men I’ve known since they were in the eighth grade. It’s a really special thing as a teacher and a coach to see us grow as a program and to win this championship is just a great accomplishment for these boys.
“They really deserve it, they worked hard for it. Got to give credit to Tustin. Coach Boss (Ringo Bossenmeyer) had 500 wins coming into this game. He is a great coach and a formidable opponent. Tustin is always really competitive. We’ve played them three years in a row now and this was the tie-breaker. We were 1-1 before this and Tustin had won the championship a few years ago. I’m just happy we could get over the edge on this one.”
Tustin (5-1) was led by Yuri Klines, who had 12 points and Ethan Contreras who had six points.
“Congratulations to Irvine on their tournament championship,” Bossenmeyer said. “They executed far better than we did on both ends and Stearns is a tremendously skilled player who truly knows how to play.”
The game was delayed about 15 minutes late in the first quarter when Tustin’s Terrelle Morales was injured in a collision. Morales, who laid on the court after the collision, was helped by the Tustin coaches and a trainer until paramedics arrived to provide assistance. Morales eventually walked off the court but did not return to the game.
“Terrelle Morales will be evaluated by our Tustin High School athletic trainer on Monday to determine the extent of his injury,” Bossenmeyer said. “He was hit in the head; however it is not clear at this time whether or not he actually sustained a concussion.”
Irvine held a 31-24 lead after three quarters but Tustin made a run, cutting the lead to 31-28 on a pair of baskets by Klines early in the fourth quarter. However, Irvine regained control and moved out to a 10-point edge on a 3-pointer by Stearns with 3:20 remaining.
Juan Martinez also contributed in the fourth quarter with six points for Irvine.
Ali Dal added six points and Evan Terakawa five points in the game for the Vaqueros complimenting the efforts of Stearns, who had a triple double with 20 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists in a 64-51 semifinal victory over Kennedy Friday night.
“I know he (Stearns) had another amazing game with really timely shots,” Meussner said. “He’s always facing a double team or being fully fronted and denied. He’s done such a great job keeping his composure through it all and I think that helped everyone keep their cool even when we had our cold spells.”
“It’s really cool to win a tournament,” said Stearns, who recently signed a national letter of intent to Stanford University for golf. “It was definitely a team effort this time around. We’ve fallen short the past two years. We wanted to make our coach proud so everyone stepped up big-time, especially the younger guys.
“We have a lot of underclassmen on our team and in their first couple varsity games and in this tournament, they all played outstanding and I’m just really proud of this group of guys for winning this event because it was definitely on our bucket list and it was our goal at the beginning of the year and it was a total group effort to win.”
Stearns hit two key 3-pointers, including one in the fourth.
“I’ve been shooting the ball pretty well recently and I was just waiting for the right time to strike, the play broke down a little and they were sagging off a little, why not shoot it, I’ve been shooting good shots the whole game and it went in and it was a big momentum booster because not only it got me propelled but we hadn’t scored in a little bit …. it got the whole team energized and we all ready to go to win that fourth quarter which we did in the end,” he said.
Meussner added that several other Vaqueros contributed to the win.
“I think that Ali and Taewon (Kim) played really well at the guard position, taking care of business, I thought sophomore Evan (Terakawa) getting in the starting lineup and battling was really impressive and I thought senior Juan Martinez off the bench played really big minutes. He did a lot of little things to help us and that’s really what we needed.”
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
