Sea Kings overcome, triumph

SANTA ANA — Three rows below the highest point of the bleachers stood Corona del Mar High’s point guard.

Instead of directing the team on the floor, senior Austin Evett pointed a camera at his teammates. He didn’t need to zoom in to see that the Sea Kings were in need of desperate help.

Three points is all Corona del Mar scored in the opening quarter at the Martin Luther King boys’ basketball invitational at Century High Monday night.

Evett, dressed in jeans and a hooded sweater, was out with a sprained right ankle. The Sea Kings’ big man, 6-foot-9 Stefan Kaluz, couldn’t even attend the game against Mission Viejo due to being ejected with two technical fouls the previous game.

Who would pick up the slack? John Joyce did, so did starters Joe Eberhard, Eddie Lane, and then an unexpected player came through.

Ryan Anderson came off the bench to score 13 second-half points and he came up with a key block with 2.2 seconds left to preserve CdM’s 51-48 win.

The opportunity for Anderson to finally contribute presented itself with CdM (12-7) struggling to score. For Anderson, he expected that his time would come.

“I’ve been waiting for the opportunity,” said Anderson, who made six of 10 field-goal attempts. “[The minutes have] been a little low, but they’ve gradually gone up as the season has gone. We were kind of nervous and we didn’t know what to do, because we’ve always had Stefan and Austin. Once we realized that we could actually play with these guys, we stepped up.”

Throughout the game, Coach Ryan Schachter pleaded for someone to fire up CdM.

Mission Viejo (13-5) stayed in the game by beating the Sea Kings to offensive rebounds.

CdM’s two biggest bodies, 6-7 Joyce and 6-5 Eberhard, did their best to keep up, but having to pick up the scoring slack on the offensive side in the second quarter wore the duo out.

Joyce admirably filled in for Kaluz, who’s always good for 20 points and 10 rebounds per game, by scoring eight of his game-high 15 points in the second. Eberhard added eight in the quarter, too, as CdM went into halftime tied, 22-22.

Schachter appeared more relieved than satisfied. Then his demeanor changed as Mission Viejo began pounding the boards again to jump out to a 40-31 advantage heading into the fourth.

On one sequence during the third, practically every Mission Viejo player grabbed an offensive rebound. A foul soon followed, and a livid Schachter could barely watch.

But the Diablos didn’t take advantage of late free throws.

After Anderson went off on Mission Viejo, scoring nine points during a 18-3 CdM run to open the final quarter, Schachter knew he could rely on his makeshift lineup.

With the Sea Kings ahead, 49-43, with 2:32 to play as Lane buried a three-pointer to give him 13 points, Mission Viejo’s Coach Troy Roelen soon learned he couldn’t count on his team.

“It was a bad effort. We’ve been playing pretty bad basketball lately,” said Roelen, whose team dropped his second straight game. “I thought it was very uninspiring. Our guards aren’t making shots, and one area of improvement has been our rebounding. That has been our Achilles heel all year long.”

The rebounding couldn’t bail Mission Viejo out. Forward Ryan Spurlock went to the free-throw line with 38.5 seconds remaining after Joyce hammered him from behind on a rebound.

Spurlock missed both free throws, but managed to grab his own miss, giving life to the Diablos. They ran the clock down to 15.5 seconds before calling a timeout.

Mission Viejo drew up a play for guard Perry Webster to penetrate. He easily did with 2.2 seconds left, but Anderson batted the ball away once he elevated and the ball went out of bounds to CdM.

“Very surprised,” said Schachter of Anderson’s performance. “He had a great summer for us, [but] kind of slipped down the depth chart. He made some huge shots for us and hopefully this will help him with his confidence.

“We were shorthanded without the best center in Orange County … and obviously our point guard, who gets us into stuff. Our guys responded well. To be honest, when we’re at full strength with Austin and Stefan, we’re capable of beating almost any team in Orange County.”

Martin Luther King Invitational

Corona del Mar 51,

Mission Viejo 48

Score by Quarters

Mission Viejo

8

14

18

8

— 48

CdM

3

19

9

20

— 51

Mission Viejo -- Webster 15, Heineken 13, Spurlock 10, Attianese 4, Huber 4, Benedix 2.

3-pt. goals -- Webster 2, Heineken 2.

Fouled out -- None.

Corona del Mar -- Joyce 15, Anderson 13, Lane 13, Eberhard 8, Donovan 2.

3-pt. goals -- Lane 1, Anderson 1.

Fouled out -- None.