Boys’ Basketball: Sea Kings top Tars, extend reign
For a couple of seconds in the third quarter of the Battle of the Bay boys’ basketball rivalry game, Newport Harbor High actually held an advantage, albeit an illegal one at Corona del Mar.
The Sailors played with six players, to the Sea Kings’ five. The CdM coaching staff quickly alerted a referee, who called a technical foul on Newport Harbor for having too many players on the court.
The Sailors could’ve used the extra player in the third quarter on Saturday. The Sea Kings broke the game open in the third, allowing them cruise to a 51-33 win.
The victory is CdM’s seventh in a row against its archrival. The Sea Kings, ranked No. 4 in CIF Southern Section Division 3A, have owned Newport Harbor since Ryan Schachter took over at CdM in 2006-07.
“We’ve had better basketball players,” Schachter said, when asked why the Back Bay rivalry has been one-sided under his watch.
The talent is definitely at CdM (13-6), as well as the size. The Sea Kings’ length, with 6-foot-7 Ryan Moss and 6-4 Matt Ctvrtlik, made it tough on the Sailors, who shot 34.1%, making only 14 of 41 field-goal attempts. The two bigs combined for half of CdM’s eight blocks.
Ctvrtlik, who had eight rebounds off the bench, got involved offensively as well. The junior knocked down a three-pointer and a free throw in a third quarter in which CdM outscored the Sailors, 16-6.
The Sea Kings went into the fourth quarter with a 38-22 lead, and Austin Ridge pushed it to as high as 24 points. The senior guard came off the bench and lit up the Sailors. He recorded 11 of CdM’s 13 points in the first four minutes, scoring twice from behind the arc, twice in the paint, and once from the charity stripe.
The first successful shot by Ridge came 19 seconds into the fourth, and he knocked out Newport Harbor’s Chase Davis in the process. Ridge caught Davis with an elbow just below the eye, and the referees stopped the game when Davis went down. Newport Harbor Coach Bob Torribio was irate about Ridge not being called for an offensive foul. On his way to checking on Davis at the other end of the court, Torribio pointed and yelled at one of the referees.
“It was definitely accidental,” Schachter said of the play. “Ridge is the nicest guy in the world.”
Another of CdM’s nice guys is Bo St. Geme, and he helped the Sea Kings put away the game.
The senior point guard produced eight of his game-high 17 points in the third quarter, ending any hope Newport Harbor (9-12) had of upending a top-10 program for the second time in as many nights. The Sailors stunned the No. 9 team in Division 1A, Huntington Beach, 59-54, giving the Sailors their second win in Sunset League play this week.
Newport Harbor played its third game this week, each one on the road. In the final game, coming in nonleague action, Newport Harbor was out of it after three quarters. The Sea Kings shot 50% in the second and third quarters, and they were on the way to winning their fourth consecutive game, three of those coming this week at home.
“We competed as long as we could,” said Torribio, who saw Nate Harding lead the Sailors with nine points, “and then our legs got the best of us there at the end.”
The Sailors have some time to rest. Their next game isn’t until Friday, when they play host to Edison, which shares the Sunset League lead.
The Sea Kings, who are alone in first place in the Pacific Coast League, return to league action on Tuesday, when they face Beckman. The game is the first of two on the road next week, the other is at Northwood on Friday. Beckman and Northwood beat CdM last season, costing the Sea Kings an outright league title.
“It was last year,” Schachter said with a grin, knowing those two setbacks forced CdM to share first place with Woodbridge last season. “Who remembers last year?”
Nonleague
Corona del Mar 51, Newport Harbor 33
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Newport – 4 – 12 – 6 – 11 — 33
CdM – 12 – 10 – 16 – 13 — 51
NH – Harding 9, Faris 7, Pipkin 5, C. Davis 2, G. Davis 2, Benter 2, Frye 2, Gaddis 2, Stassel 2.
3-pt. goals – Faris 1.
CdM – St. Geme 17, Ridge 11, Kobrine 6, Ctvrtlik 6, Fults 5, Stone 4, Kleinman 2. 3-pt. goals – St. Geme 2, Ridge 2, Fults 1, Ctvrtlik 1.
Twitter: @DCPenaloza