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Tustin point guard Ethan Contreras gets past Costa Mesa’s Garry Slone during the first quarter of Friday Night’s Empire League showdown at Tustin. (PHOTOS: Fernando M. Donado, For OC Sports Zone).
Tustin High School’s boys basketball team picked a perfect time for one of its best efforts of the season Friday night.
The Tillers led from the start and rolled to a 67-42 victory over Costa Mesa to take over sole possession of first place in the Empire League. The two teams came into the league tied for first place in league.
Tustin (18-6, 4-0) had a balanced scoring attack led by Yuri Klines, who had 16 points and six rebounds and Ethan Contreras, who had 15 points and five assists. Daniel Molina added 12 points for Tustin.
To see the slide show, click on the first photo:
Marlee Slone scored 19 points and Kembe Howerton 13 points to lead Costa Mesa (9-14, 3-1).
Tustin Coach Ringo Bossenmeyer was pleased with the win, but reminded his players there are still four league games left.
“We’re only half-way through,” Bossenmeyer said. “It’s like taking half the test, if you flip it over and if you don’t know the answers to the second half, you’re going to fail. We’re in position, but now we got to go one game at a time and Calvary Chapel has our full attention.”
Bossenmeyer liked what he saw of the Tillers effort Friday.
“I was really impressed with our focus, our intent and our physicality,” Bossenmeyer said. “Those three areas lead to some good basketball, yeah we played a good 32 minutes. Yuri and Ethan set us up in the first half and got us rolling offensively and I thought our defensive focus for 32 minutes was at a pretty high level.”
Molina not only contributed offensively with four 3-pointers but held one of Costa Mesa’s top players Garry Slone scoreless.
“He’s now turned into a complete player. We know he can make shots, he’s done that throughout the year but it was impressive to see his effort and his improvement on the defensive end,” Bossenmeyer said.
Tustin led 16-8 after one quarter and 30-20 at halftime.
Contreras picked up his third foul early in the third quarter and left the game but his teammates picked up the slack.
Klines had eight points in the quarter to help Tustin move out to a 49-28 lead after three quarters and the Tillers coasted the rest of the way.
“I didn’t think they were really physical with me going inside the paint so I just kept taking advantage of them and kept making shots, I had a little streak, I felt they didn’t really match my physicality or matched my penetration at all,” Contreras said.
Contreras kept the win in perspective.
“It’s only half the season,” he said. “We’re four miles into an eight-mile marathon. We didn’t win league yet, we haven’t accomplished anything yet. It’s just one win to our record, that’s it.”
“It feels great, it’s a great win, but like he (Contreras) said, it’s only half way, we still play every team again, we’re trying to win league and try and go into CIF (playoffs), it’s a good step forward,” added Klines, who said the Tillers physicality and hustle was the difference.
“We were focused mentally right before the game. We just outplayed them.”
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com