Alumni Basketball: Sailors top CdM in OT

Frustrated by a charge called against him in the final 20 seconds of a tied game, Kyle Caldwell flung his face mask toward the Newport Harbor bench in frustration Saturday afternoon at Corona del Mar High.

The ex-Sailors basketball and volleyball standout had flown from San Francisco to Orange County in the morning to play in the Jack Errion Memorial Back Bay Alumni Basketball Tournament. Caldwell did not want to lose in the title game to rival Corona del Mar.

Overtime started and Caldwell, who had nasal reconstructive surgery in March, retrieved his mask. Then, he went back to work.

Caldwell scored five of his team-high 19 points in overtime as Newport Harbor’s team, made up primarily of players from the Classes of 2006 through 2009, beat CdM, 46-36 to win the tournament championship.

The Sailors and Sea Kings combined their alumni tournaments for the first time, but it was Caldwell who helped his core group navigate through the 11-team field to win its third alumni title in five years. He had not played in the tournament himself in four or five years, he said, but his presence helped make up for the absence of team staple Chad Stassel, who is in Africa on a family trip.

“It’s just a day trip,” said Caldwell, Class of 2008, who planned to fly back to San Francisco on Saturday night. “A business trip, an investment. More importantly, it’s just seeing people I haven’t seen in a long time on both sides [of the bay], Newport and CdM. Obviously, everyone gets competitive and it gets a little bit more physical than it should, but it wouldn’t be Battle of the Bay if it wasn’t.”

Tony Melum (Newport Harbor Class of 2002) scored 10 points in the title game, while Michael Helfrich (Class of 2009) and Matt Helfrich (Class of 2007) had five each. Travis Kuhns (Class of 2008) added a three-pointer and Weston Dunlap (Class of 2007), who played volleyball with Caldwell at UCLA, added a basket. Shane Vultee (Class of 2006) rounded out the roster.

Corona del Mar, which combined its 1999 and 2000 teams prior to the final, was led by Kevin Hansen (Class of 2000) and his 19 points. Alec Hanson (Class of 2000) added nine points, including a rare four-point play, and tournament co-organizer Brett Matsen (Class of 2003) also scored four.

Games were 20 minutes with a running clock, and Newport Harbor’s squad had a 36-29 lead with a minute left in the title game after Matt Helfrich rebounded his own missed free throw and scored. But Hansen scored five points late, including a free throw worth two points with 22 seconds left, to tie the score. In the interest of speeding up play, players who were fouled in the act of shooting got a single free-throw attempt that was worth two points.

The Sea Kings had a final possession to win the game in regulation, but it was hurried and Hansen’s three-pointer from near midcourt with a second left was wide.

“Hansen’s a great buddy of mine,” Caldwell said. “Obviously, we know each other through volleyball [the sport in which Hansen made the 2008 Olympic team], and he passed the torch to me in some sense. When he’s doing what he did, you’ve got to find a way to answer and try to stay in the game, especially when they crawl back and it goes to overtime. We had two minutes to put our best ball together, and sometimes you’ve got to bully it in the post and put some balls up.”

Caldwell scored twice on Hansen from in close in overtime, in which Newport Harbor scored all 10 points in the period.

“Obviously, you want to go to work on Monday, but at the same time you want to win,” said Melum, who at 32 was the elder statesman of the Sailors squad. “I lied through my teeth about how my legs hurt, my back hurts, I’m old. It’s all mental tactics. I feel great. It’s fun to get older and sort of be coaching. But yeah, I want to win. When I played at Harbor, I always had this mantra that I’d step over my own mom to win.

“I’d treat this not quite the same way, because I’ve got three kids,” Melum added with a laugh. “But it’s the same sentiment.”

Newport Harbor’s winning squad beat the defending Sailors alumni tournament champion from the Class of 2003, 24-21, in the semifinals, hanging on after a late three-pointer was off-target.

“Those are the guys I went to school with,” Melum said of the team that included Newport tournament director Chase Cameron. “It was fun to beat those guys.”

CdM’s defending tournament champion, which had members from the Class of 2014 and ‘15, was eliminated in the quarterfinals by the CdM Class of 1999 after Matsen made a tie-breaking free throw with three seconds left. The Class of 1999 team then merged with the 2000 squad.

Tournament co-director Geoff Hunt, Jim Davenport, Dennis Alshuler, Jeff Fracalosy, Ryan Franke, Zach Brewster, Joel Templeton and Luis and Jose Nejar were the other members of the combined CdM finalist.

Matsen was encouraged that the recent graduates came out to play. A CdM Class of 2016 team featuring Matt Ctvrtlik and Sam Kobrine, headed to Harvard and UCLA, respectively, for volleyball, also competed.

“That’s what we want,” Matsen said. “We want to keep building with the old guys so they’re all excited, and the young guys, they all know each other growing up through volleyball and basketball so they’ll be hungry to play in it. Our goal next year is more than 12 teams. It’s going to be a great community event.”