Artesia heads above the crowd -- again

Mike Sciacca, Independent

No one, really, gave the Ocean View High boys basketball team much

of a chance Saturday when the Seahawks took on top-seeded Artesia in the

CIF Southern Section Division II-A championship game at the Arrowhead

Pond in Anaheim. Then again, no one, especially Ocean View Coach Jim

Harris, expected the second-seeded Seahawks to play as poorly as they

did.

Ocean View, which needed to hit the boards hard and keep turnovers to a

minimum, did neither, and the result was an easy 83-46 victory for the

Pioneers, who won their third consecutive Southern Section title.

“The two big areas of the game where we needed to be at our best was

rebounding and limit our turnovers, but we played about as poorly as we

could in both areas,” Harris said. “It was discouraging to perform the

way that we did, and it was really disheartening to have the final score

turn out the way it did.

“I don’t care how good Artesia is, there’s no way we should get beat by

37 points.”

Artesia, which enters this week’s state playoffs with a 30-2 record, has

a way of disrupting a team’s game plan. Just ask Savanna (102-54),

Bloomington (104-45), Laguna Hills (94-53), and John Muir (70-36), all of

whom the Pioneers blew right out the gym door during postseason play.

They added Ocean View (29-3) to that list, using a 14-2 run early in the

second quarter to take any suspense out of the game.

At that point, the Pioneers, who led 19-10 after one quarter, had a 33-14

lead with 3:41 to go in the half, then went on to a 37-21 cushion at the break.

Neither team, though, was sharp in the first half, especially the opening

quarter, where Ocean View committed five turnovers, and Artesia, eight.

The Seahawks, who held their only leads of the game at 2-0 and 4-2 in the

first quarter, would finish with 17 turnovers by the break.

They had 29 in the game, overall.

“Both teams were sluggish, that’s for sure,” Artesia Coach Wayne Merino

said of the turnovers committed by both clubs. “I give credit to Ocean

View for staying right with us at the start. They really stuck to their

game plan. They’re a good team, but I was surprised that they appeared to

have stopped playing in the third quarter.”

Harris agreed.

“You know, we were down 16 at the half, and I told our guys that we

needed to come out and play better after the break, make some things

happen by attacking on defense and going to the basket on offense. But,

we didn’t do either. That’s the discouraging part.”

Ocean View was guilty of four more turnovers in the first two minutes of

the second half, and the Pioneers took advantage of those miscues. They

scored six points off those turnovers and went on to score the first 13

points of the third quarter to go on top, 50-21.

Seahawk point guard Ryan Westbrook, scoreless in the first half, hit two

free throws and a technical foul shot at the 3:37 mark of the quarter,

and starting forward Torin Beeler, also held without a basket in the

first half (Beeler scored one free throw), hit a lay up to make it 50-27.

Artesia took a 60-33 lead into the fourth quarter. The only shouting left

for the Seahawks in the final eight minutes of play was a three-point

basket by freshman guard Casey Ortiz with 4:19 remaining.

It was the only three-point basket Ocean View would get in the game.

Junior Marques Crane, named Ocean View’s game MVP by the media in

attendance, led Ocean View with 15 points and 10 rebounds. Junior Neal

Smith was next with eight points, and senior co-captain Jeremiah Bell

finished with seven points.

Beeler, who fouled out with 2:50 left in the third quarter, had just

three points, and Westbrook, who averaged nearly 12 points per game,

scored only six points, and didn’t get his first basket until 2:12

remained in the fourth quarter.

Artesia, whose big men on the inside proved too much for the Seahawks to

handle, got a game-high 20 points from team MVP Amaury Fernandez, a

6-foot-9 junior center, 18 points from 6-8 forward Jack Martinez, 12 from

sixth man Franklin Matos, a 6-4 sophomore guard, and 11 points from

sophomore guard Jon Steffansson.

“We just never got a quality game going,” added Harris, who guided Ocean

View to the Division IIIAA title -- its first in basketball -- two years

ago. “You know, you come in here to the Pond excited and wanting to play

your best. We didn’t, and that’s what hurts most. We’re a better team

than that final score would indicate.”