Portola Coach Brian Smith gives some advice before the start of the third quarter Thursday. (PHOTOS: TIm Burt, OC Sports Zone).
Portola’s boys basketball team proved why it is the top seeded team in the Pacific Coast League post-season tournament, defeating No. 8 St. Margaret’s 87-44 Thursday night at Portola.
Portola (21-5) moves on to the semifinals Friday night against Sage Hill at Portola. On day one of the tourney, the Bulldogs have already accomplished a major task, clinching at least one of the four automatic CIF playoff berths from the league.
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Coach Brian Smith’s team has won 14 in a row and has reached 20 wins for the first time in program history. Portola went 7-0 in PCL regular season play.
The Buldogs settled the issue early jumping out to a 14-0 lead in the opening minutes and were never threatened after that. St. Margaret’s, coached by Jon Hughes, has been plagued by injuries this year with four starters out and another starter out ill Thursday.
St. Margaret’s (9-15) plays at Northwood Friday night.
“This one was big for us because we know winning this game solidifies us for CIF playoffs,” said Smith. “We got to finish top four in the league, that was the big key for us coming in, we said, ‘let’s get this one taken care of.’ Obviously, they were outmanned but for the last couple of games, we hadn’t played to our potential.
“Tonight, we got to play a few more of our guys and I think we played more to our potential. I’m proud of their effort, loved that they were knocking shots down, we had a good crowd and I loved seeing our band here and our cheerleaders and our student section.”
Lucas Ip scored 19 points and made four 3-pointers, Gavin Nguyen had 14 points and three 3-pointers and Steve Yang came off the bench to score 13 points to lead Portola.
St. Margaret’s was led by junior Sam Ludlum who had his best game of the year with 19 points. Davin Grover added nine points for the Tartans.
“It’s tough when you’re out that many starters to compete with these guys, they’re super well coached, they can run and gun and can score at a clip,” Hughes said. “They’re a really good team and we wish them nothing but the best, hopefully the next two games we can ride out with the guys that we have. All credit to them, they did a great job.”
Portola substitued freely and all of its players got in the game.
Nguyen and Ip helped the Bulldogs jump out to a 34-10 lead after one quarter. The Bulldogs led 50-23 at halftime and by 41 points going into the fourth quarter.
“We went out and played really well tonight,” Nguyen said. “We didn’t want to underestimate the team even though they are the number eight seed. We clinched the CIF spot with this win, we have to be ready for when it comes to CIF. Even though we’re on a winning streak and have a lot of momentum, we just got to keep pushing it.”
“It feels great, we weren’t able to get CIF (playoffs) last year so this was one of our goals and I’m glad we can do it with this team,” added Ip. “I thought we came out really hot, we hit a lot of three’s and kind of just put them away at the start and then all 13 guys from the bench to the starters were all locked in and ready to go. I thought the bench did a good job maintaining that momentum throughout the game, it was a good win.”
Portola, as it has all season, was successful pushing the ball quickly up the court.
“We like to play fast especially because we don’t have as much size,” Ip said. “We did a really good job sticking to our system and our game plan and got a good win.”
But there is another goal: to win the tournament, which wraps up Tuesday with four games at Woodbridge.
“It’s very important, it’s definitely one of our team’s goals,” Ip said. “It’s probably at the top of our list and we really want to get a banner this year and I think we have a good chance with this team. We have two more to go.”
—-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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