Aliso Niguel’s Wyatt Richmond handles the ball under pressure from Beckman as teammate Jayden Mysin sets a screen. (PHOTOS: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).
Aliso Niguel’s boys basketball team withstood a fourth quarter charge by Beckman and held on for a hard-fought 61-60 victory Monday night at Beckman to clinch at least a share of the Sea View League title.
Beckman (14-12, 3-3) trailed for three quarters but took the lead in the final quarter before Aliso Niguel regained it.
Aliso Niguel just missed earning a title last season, so the goal this year was clear, to bring one home.
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Senior guard Jay Keys scored 17 points and reached 1,000 points his career, freshman Miles Iribarne had 13 points and senior Jayden Mysin 12 points to lead Aliso Niguel (18-8, 6-0).
The Wolverines can clinch the outright title with a victory over Trabuco Hills Wednesday night at home.
“It was real competitive, Rusty (Beckman Coach Van Cleave) does a great job with them and I always know it’s going to be a tight game with them, the first game we won by two,” said Aliso Niguel Coach Keith Barnett. “I thought we had good stretches where we really played well and competed defensively and we had stretches where we didn’t and credit to them, they came back when they were down 13 or 14 and made it a really tough game for us.
“One more win puts us in a great spot and would get us that league championship (outright) which would be great for these guys, they’re really great kids, they’ve worked hard and they are really supportive of each other.”
Beckman, which is very much in the CIF playoff chase, gave the Wolverines all they could handle down the stretch led by senior Qusai Azem, who scored a game high 26 points, 13 coming in the final quarter. Bronson Mejia added 11 points and 11 rebounds and Joshua Charette had eight points and five assists.
“I think we waited a little bit too long for our teamwork to kick in,” said Van Cleave, the Beckman Coach. ” “I thought we were fantastic on both sides of the ball in the second half, we really shared the ball, we found a lot of easy shots. When we were playing a little too much one on one at times, it was hard, because they’ve got some good players and big strong bodies out there.
“But it was some of our best basketball that we’ve played all year in that second half.”
After trailing by seven point going at halftime and by nine going into the final quarter, moved ahead 54-51 on a 3-pointer by Anton Le with 4:10 left in the game.
However, Aliso Niguel regained the lead and moved ahead 61-58 with 22 seconds left when Iribarne made one of two free throws. Beckman’s first attempt to tie the game fell of the rim but the ball went out bounds.
The Patriots got one more chance with nine seconds left, but Aliso Niguel allowed a concession basket to Azem closing the gap to one point. Beckman had no more timeouts to stop the clock and Aliso Niguel ran out the clock before celebrating the road win.
“This victory means a lot for our team,” said Keys. “Last year, we couldn’t pull league out, this year we’re now 6-0 so going into two home games, one this week, one next week, I think it will be really good for us. Our team is moving the ball at an elite level, we’re defending better than we were at the beginning of the season.
“It’s all just growth, our team has been growing, we’ve had the same starting five this year and last year, we’re all just brothers and we all love each other, it’s exciting playing with each other. Our resilience, most importantly we couldn’t do it without our bench energy, all of our bench players are so key to our team. They bring the energy all the time, home or away.”
Beckman, in third place in the league, will try to secure a playoff berth in its final two league games.
“I think we’ve got to do a job on Wednesday (at El Toro) and Friday night (at Mission Viejo) which are our last two games to put ourselves in an optimal position,” Van Cleave said. “Going on the road for those last two games is not going to be easy but it’s great prep for the playoffs, so we will have to see, there are some unknowns at this point, when you lose games late in the year, it gets a little iffy.”
The first three teams in the league earn automatic CIF playoff berths.
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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