Littlerock Becomes Just Plain History

LITTLEROCK —  The basketball team at Littlerock High reserved a spot in school history last week, becoming the first Lobos’ team in any sport to win a playoff game.

This week, there was no such fanfare. The party basically ended in the third quarter, crashed by patient, disciplined Santa Margarita and a point guard named R.J. Socci.

Santa Margarita had more energy and more points in a 59-53 victory over Littlerock in the second round of the Southern Section Division II-AA playoffs Tuesday night at Littlerock.

Socci scored or assisted on 15 of the Eagles’ final 18 points, including an important last-minute play that fended off a late Littlerock rally.

Littlerock (20-8) defeated Buena Park last week, giving the Lobos their first playoff victory since the school began competing at the varsity level in 1991. But Santa Margarita (23-5) was a different Orange County team.

Much different.

Littlerock had trouble penetrating in the half-court offense and scored substantially fewer fast-break points than usual.

The Lobos trailed, 48-31, on a three-point play by Socci with 59 seconds left in the third quarter.

Littlerock rallied, creating turnovers with a full-court press and pulling to within 54-51 on consecutive three-pointers by Jose Zavala.

“It got a little hairy at the end,” said Coach Jerry DeBusk of Santa Margarita. “For the most part, we were in control of the game, but we didn’t handle the ball real well at the end.”

But with 1:05 left, Socci came up with a drive-and-dish, drawing in the defense as the shot clock wound down and feeding Ryan Stacey for an easy dunk.

Littlerock’s history-making days were over.

“We fought back pretty good, but it would have felt better with a win,” said swingman Gene Myvett, who leaves as Littlerock’s career scoring leader.

Stacey finished with 15 points for Santa Margarita and Brandon Rohe had 17 points. Socci scored 15 points for the Eagles, 13 in the second half.

“I felt we needed to step up,” Socci said. “I just had to take control and do it.”

Frank Robinson scored 12 points for Littlerock, which never led again after holding a 6-5 edge midway through the first quarter.

An 11-0 run late in the fourth quarter made things interesting--”Our seniors rose through adversity,” said Coach Ben Dale of Littlerock--but not enough for Littlerock to win.

“We were hoping to pull it out,” Myvett said. “A couple shots just didn’t drop.”