Boys basketball: Eagles win
Richard Dunn
COSTA MESA - Maybe now people will respect Estancia High’s Eagles,
who missed the CIF Southern Section boys basketball playoffs last year
with a 10-15 record.
“You need 11 wins (for playoff consideration),” Estancia Coach Chris
Sorce said with a mild grin, after his host Eagles improved to 11-8
overall and 2-1 in the Pacific Coast League with a 67-57 victory
Wednesday night over crosstown rival Costa Mesa.
“I don’t think anybody expected us to win,” added Sorce, whose program
lost both PCL encounters against Costa Mesa last year and three of the
last four. “Our seniors had never beaten Costa Mesa before.”
Estancia, which led most of the game, featured 6-foot-7 junior Joey
Lindquist inside. Lindquist finished with a team-high 22 points and 12
rebounds.
“I thought we had an advantage in the paint with Joey,” Sorce said.
“And he fouled a couple of players out.”
Costa Mesa (11-8, 0-3), which had two players foul out (including
center Jason Millward with 4:04 left in the third quarter), was led by
senior point guard David Conte, who scored a game-high 27 points.
“We had no answer for Conte, but we did a nice job on Chad Vakili (11
points on 1 of 12 from three-point shooting),” Sorce said.
“I think we’ve surprised some people. When Micah Young went down in
the second game of the season with a torn ACL, people said stick a folk
in Estancia.”
Fernando Maldonado (18 points), freshman Carlos Pinto (13) and Jorge
Prado (12) also scored in double figures for the Eagles, who outscored
the Mustangs in three of the four quarters.
“They outplayed us,” Costa Mesa Coach Bob Serven said of the Eagles.
“There were also two terrible officials, and you can put that in ... but
they just outplayed us in every facet of the game.”
Estancia built a 22-12 lead in the second quarter after Prado made
three from the foul line with 6:26 left. But the Mustangs rallied and
pulled to within two points, before Estancia took a 31-28 halftime lead.
Estancia never led by more than 10 points until Maldonado canned his
fourth three-pointer of the contest with 2:26 to play in the fourth,
giving the hosts a 64-50 advantage.
Pinto, a 6-3 forward who added nine rebounds, made 5 of 7 from the
field and 3 of 4 from the foul line.
Maldonado was 4 of 6 from beyond the three-point arc, while Lindquist
was 7 of 13 from the field.Costa Mesa, which led only once at 2-0, cut
Estancia’s lead to 49-44 at third quarter’s end, following a
three-pointer by Vakili.
“This was just an all-around team effort,” Sorce said. “We had our
three best practices of the season leading up to this game. Everybody
wanted this one.”
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