Mens basketball: Picking up the slack

Joseph Boo

COSTA MESA - When Orange Coast College’s David Castleton graciously

deferred the limelight, Chad Hagedorn was more than willing to step in.

The 6-foot-4 freshman forward scored 27 points and grabbed nine rebounds

to lead the Pirates to an 84-79 win over Golden West Wednesday night at

Coast in the first Orange Empire Conference game for both teams.

“They took David Castleton out of the game,” OCC Coach Mark Hill said.

“They made other people beat them. We have other kids who can score, and

Chad picked it up big tonight.”

Castleton, who leads OCC with a 21.8 points per game average, shot

4-for-15 from the floor on an off night, but still scored 16 points. Jeff

Beeler and Dave Elliott also broke double-digits in scoring. Elliott

grabbed 13 rebounds to lead his team, and Hagedorn hit four

three-pointers.

It was the three-point shot that gave OCC (12-4, 1-0 in conference) the

lead in the second half. After a 42-37 halftime deficit, the Pirates hit

five three-pointers, three of them in a 14-2 run.

It was that run and a 14-0 spurt in the first half that staggered the

Rustlers (5-11, 0-1 in conference). OCC had the biggest lead of the game

at 12 points after the 14-0 run.

But Golden West cut the lead down swiftly, and took a lead with 1:05 left

in the first half. OCC regained the lead in the second behind two threes

from Hagedorn and Beeler, only to lose it again.

Then the 14-2 OCC run, with threes from Castleton, Duc Nguyen and Scott

Rivera. That put the Pirates up for good, but not before they had to

survive another close finish.

Golden West hit two three-pointers to close the lead to three twice in

the last 30 seconds of the game. But OCC’s Ryan Earl was fouled on the

inbound with four seconds left, and he hit both of his free throws to

close out the Rustlers.

“We jumped out ahead and had a chance to close them out and we didn’t.

That was disappointing,” Hill said. “We just hung on at the end.”

OCC also made the free throws when it counted, hitting 17 more than

Golden West in the second half. Four Rustlers fouled out in their

comeback effort. OCC shot 70 % from the line, compared to Golden West’s

57 %.