2-A Boys : Defense Does It for Oceanside, 63-40 : Mission Bay, Held to Two Points in Third Quarter, Is Defeated

SAN DIEGO —  Oceanside High School limited Mission Bay to two points in the third quarter and defeated the Buccaneers, 63-40, to win its second straight San Diego Section 2-A boys title Wednesday at the Sports Arena.

“Our defense was excellent,” Oceanside Coach Bill Christopher said. “Two points in the third quarter is excellent. That was the game.”

Said Mission Bay Coach Mike Seaman: “They did an outstanding job on defense. They took us out of everything we wanted to do.”

Only a jumper by Jon Cheatham early on prevented Mission Bay from being shutout in the quarter. Meanwhile, Oceanside scored 12 points, including the last 10 of the quarter, to give the Pirates a 35-23 lead. The Oceanside edge swelled to as many as 23 in the fourth quarter.

The Pirates were led by senior guard Tim Prim who scored a game-high 18 points, and center Henry Quintero and forward Junior Seau, who had 14 each. Marvin McMahan scored only two points, but had nine assists.

Guard Rodney Henderson paced the Bucs with 11 points. Cheatham scored 10.

“They were giving us a lot of problems with their defense,” guard Mike Rogers said. “We tried to get the ball inside, but couldn’t do it.”

The patient Pirates averaged 72% from the floor on 23 of 32 shooting.

“Our style matches our talent,” Seau said. “I love the style. We’re winning. I must love it.”

“Coach Christopher has been getting on us for having bad third quarters in our two (previous) playoff games. We gave him a present. We wanted to show him we could have a good third quarter.’

And the Pirates did a good job of convincing Christopher.

“If you look at both ends of the floor,” Christopher said, “we played as flawless a game as we could have hoped for. I couldn’t have written a better script.”

Both teams played deliberate basketball in the first half. The Pirates were trailing throughout most of the first quarter, but a jumper by Seau with 35 seconds left gave them an 11-10 lead.

Oceanside opened the second quarter with six straight points, four by Seau and two by Prim. That spurt put the Pirates on top, 17-10, with six minutes remaining in the half.

But Mission Bay outscored the Pirates, 6-2, in the final 3:11 of the half to cut the deficit to one. After Henderson and Prim traded baskets, Cheatham and Henderson scored to close to 23-21.

Oceanside (19-6) advances to the Southern California regionals. Mission Bay ends the season at 19-6.

“We had a hecka season,” Seaman said. “No Mission Bay team has ever been to the CIF finals. Our kids don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”