Eagles take care of La Quinta

Tony Altobelli

COSTA MESA - Two quarters of delight outweighed two quarters of

cruise control for the Estancia High boys basketball team in Thursday

night’s 67-52 pool-play win over La Quinta at the Coast Christmas

Classic.

“There are some games where even if you lose, you can walk away happy

with the effort,” Estancia Coach Chris Sorce said. “Tonight, we won, but

I’m still looking for four quarters of nonstop effort. It was a tough

game to coach because everyone was sort of looking ahead to Edison in the

semifinals.”

With the win, Estancia (4-6) gets its shot at the Chargers and former

Coach Rich Boyce today at 5:50 p.m. at Estancia High.

“I’ll have mixed emotions, that’s for sure,” Sorce said of coaching

against Boyce. “Rich and I are friends and his team is playing well.

We’re going to need our ‘A’ game against those guys.”

Junior Micah Young led the Eagles with 19 points, but it was the hot

shooting of senior Eliasar Maldonado which got the Eagles flying early.

The 6-foot guard hit 5 of 6 from the field in the first quarter,

including two three-pointers as the Eagles used hot shooting and

relentless defense to open up a 27-9 advantage.

“I was very pleased with how our defense set the tempo for us early in

the ballgame,” Sorce said. “As far as Eliasar goes, he’s one of the top

three-point shooters in this area and he has a solid post-up game as

well. He can score a number of ways.”

After a solid first quarter of play, the Eagles’ offense took a nap as

La Quinta (1-9) trimmed the 18-point advantage down to 12 by halftime.

After a talking to by Sorce at the intermission, Estancia awoke from

its slumber and scored the first 13 points of the third quarter. Junior

George Prado scored nine of his 15 points in that quarter.

“George was given a chance to start four or five games ago and he’s

making the most of it,” Sorce said. “He’s been a pleasant surprise for

us. His offense and defense has progressed nicely.”

Estancia had a 28-point lead with just over four minutes remaining,

but a 17-4 run from the Aztecs cut the lead nearly in half, leaving Sorce

with a bad taste in his mouth.

“I guess the most important thing is getting the win, but we were on

cruise control down the stretch,” Sorce said. “We can’t afford to do

things like that.”

Ken Do led the Aztecs with 16 points, while Andy Munoz added 14.

An Estancia win tonight puts the Eagles in the championship game on

Saturday night at 7:30 against the Kennedy-El Dorado winner.

COAST CHRISTMAS CLASSIC

Pool play

Estancia 67, La Quinta 52

La Quinta 9 12 9 22 - 52 Estancia 27 6 22 12 - 67

La Quinta - Do 16, Munoz 14, Yakinian 9, Sunu 5, Nguyen 4, Subandhi 4.

3 pt. goals - Do 2, Munoz 1.

Fouled out - none.

Estancia - Young 19, Maldonado 17, Prado 15, D. Valbuena 6, Rodriguez

4, Cachola 4, K. Valbuena 2, Pham 0, Berame 0, Niles 0, Stoddard 0,

Romero 0.

3 pt. goals - Maldonado 3, Prado 2.

Fouled out - none.