Marina wins this family feud

Mike Sciacca

Family ties are what bind Roger Holmes and Todd Dixon, but on Tuesday

night it was more like a family feud when Marina High hosted El Toro

in a second-round game of the CIF Southern Section Division I-A boys’

basketball playoffs.

Although they talked on the court prior to the opening tip, the

two head coaches, who are brothers-in-law, went to their respective

corners and, for the night, became rivals.

It was Holmes’ Vikings who won this game, 48-45, to advance to a

quarterfinal home showdown Friday with Thousand Oaks.

Marina (22-7) trailed El Toro (22-6) by five points in the fourth

quarter before rallying to win.

“Both teams played with so much heart, it was fun to watch,”

Holmes said.

James Lambert scored 18 points, but none as important as the six

coming on back-to-back three-point shots at the outset of the fourth

quarter that propelled Marina into the lead, 41-40.

Matt Brennan also scored key baskets in the quarter and finished

with 15 points, overall.

Stephen Becker had six points and seven assists.

Prior to becoming “family” by marriage, Holmes was the head coach

of the Ocean View High sophomore team when Dixon played on that

1981-82 squad.

Holmes went on to become head coach at Santa Margarita, and in

1991 gave Dixon his first coaching job.

Dixon was an assistant to Holmes for one year before assuming the

head coaching position of Santa Margarita’s junior varsity squad.

“We are very close and see each other quite often,” Holmes said.

“It is a little tough to be playing this game against ‘family’ but

once the game starts, it will be like any other playoff game.”

El Toro, which tied for the South Coast League championship,

entered Tuesday’s game coming off a 70-56 first-round home victory

over Canyon of Canyon Country.

“They are very good and have been ranked in the top five in CIF

all season long,” Holmes said. “We really needed to play a solid game

to win this one.”

And the Vikings, the third-place team representing the Sunset

League, did just that.

Marina opened the playoffs last Friday with an 83-68 victory at

West Covina.

The Vikings received several big performances in that win,

including 30 points by Lambert and 26 by Brennan.

But it was Becker who went into the school record book on two

occasions during that game.

Becker, a 6-foot senior guard, scored 10 points, but it was his

record-breaking game in terms of assists that stood out: He set a

school single-game assists record with 18, breaking his own

single-game mark of 15. That total gave him a school single-season

record of 253 assists, which broke the previous record set in 1975 by

Rich Branning, who had 236 that year.