Mariners repeats as Coast Classic basketball tournament champ
At the end of the Coast Classic boys’ basketball tournament, depth and talent proved to be on the Mariners Elementary fifth-and sixth-grade team’s side.
The Newport Beach school is the only elementary that can say it has won the Coast Classic every year. The Coast Classic has only been around for two years, but Mariners went undefeated again, beating Costa Mesa’s Kaiser, 44-27, in the gold division final at Vanguard University on Sunday.
Mariners’ two-year run has been impressive, finishing 6-0 this year and 5-0 the previous year. For Mariners’ 10 players, this most likely marked the end of their Coast Classic playing days.
Most of the incoming sixth-graders have competed for Coach Robert Hess during Mariners’ two Coast Classic titles. The team included Michael Gurka, Brandon Kincaid, Cody Leithem, Luke O’Neil, Cody Hess, Cole McKibben, Dylan Lee, Kevin Forbath, Jordan Stucki and Sam DiCarlo. Only Stucki and DiCarlo didn’t play for Mariners in the tournament’s inaugural year.
“The boys were on fire from the get-go,” said Robert Hess, whose team won by an average of 16.2 points per game. “No other team had as many [players] as we did. That could’ve been by choice or they couldn’t find enough bodies. We put on a full-court press that no one could really handle.”
Kaiser ran into issues before facing Mariners. The Costa Mesa school went into the final day of the two-day tournament with only five players. In a five-on-five tournament, that can spell trouble.
Kaiser Coach Dylan Rigdon said his team lost a player to an injury during the first day and another player wasn’t available for the second day. The team called up Ian Herron, a player from Kaiser’s fifth- and sixth-grade silver team, to give players a breather.
With only six players, Cooper Hoch, Brodie Ogletree, Eamon Rigdon, Nate Peters, Logan Ridenour and Herron, Kaiser won its quarterfinal game against Mariners Christian, 36-25, and semifinal game against Lincoln, 31-27. In the finale against Mariners, the lack of depth caught up to Kaiser.
“We got out to a big 8-0 lead, then it went up to 13-3,” Hess said, “but then Cooper and Eamon hit a couple of big threes to keep Kaiser in it.”
At one point in the third quarter, Kaiser trailed Mariners, 18-16. That’s as close as Kaiser would get, as Mariners pulled away in the fourth.
Gurka, Kincaid, Leithem and O’Neil played well for Mariners, while many considered Hoch to be one of the best players in the tournament.
“It was a great tournament,” said Dylan Rigdon, a 1989 Mater Dei graduate who went on to play college ball at UC Irvine and Arizona. “The kids had a blast and it was a great community event.
“We were a little outmanned, but for our kids it was a fun experience. Next year hopefully we can come back and do a little bit better and find eight or nine players to play.”
Rigdon said two of Kaiser’s players, his son, Eamon, and Hoch, are going into their fifth-grade year. They plan to return and play in the tournament Costa Mesa resident Forrest Ogletree founded.
Ogletree, who patterned the Coast Classic after the popular Daily Pilot Cup youth soccer tournament, said he hopes to expand the tournament next year. The Coast Classic featured 24 teams from 13 schools, Costa Mesa’s Kaiser, Saint Joachim Catholic School, Mariners Christian School and St. John the Baptist Catholic School, Newport Beach’s Mariners, Newport Heights, Andersen and Carden Hall, Corona del Mar’s Harbor View, Lincoln and Harbor Day School, The Pegasus School in Huntington Beach, and Laguna Beach’s El Morro.
The tournament had two divisions, for third- and fourth-graders and fifth- and sixth-graders. Harbor Day won the third- and fourth-grade championship by edging Mariners, 24-21, while El Morro claimed the fifth- and sixth-grade silver crown with a 43-19 win against St. John the Baptist Catholic School.
Harbor Day’s team, which finished 5-1, included Dillon Lane, Reed Wainright, Danyel Khan, Michael Lynch, Dylan Mirhashemi, Aidan Powell, Arman Rofougaran, Walker Vaicek, Dilan Vanjani, Everett Welton and Jack Yoshida. Shep Wainright was the coach. From El Morro, Coach Coby Naess guided Bryce Ford, Jackson Sirianni, Oliver Rounaghi, Griffin Naess, Ben Neufeld, Blake Sullivan, Blake Draper and Taylor Towe to a 6-0 record.
The “Coach Beez” sportsmanship awards, named after Matt Beeuwsaert, a former Mater Dei standout who went on to play at Notre Dame and UC Berkeley, as well as professionally in Europe, went to Riggs Guy from Mariners’ third- and fourth-grade team and Ridenour from Kaiser.
“We’re most definitely going to do it again at Vanguard University next year,” said Ogletree, who received some help from Vanguard men’s basketball coach Rhett Soliday at the end of the tournament. “We were breaking down everything in the gym, and everyone had left, and it was me and [Soliday] taking down the banners. This is the guy who led Vanguard to an NAIA national championship [in 2014], and he was helping me and he wasn’t being paid. He’s such a great guy and I can’t thank him enough and his players, who did the scoreboard and PA during the games.”
