Estancia levels Mesa

COSTA MESA — For Estancia High, Friday night’s boys’ basketball game provided a much-appreciated Orange Coast League-opening win, but for Costa Mesa Coach Kevin Palmer, it was another game of hoarse.

That’s h-o-a-r-s-e, not h-o-r-s-e.

Palmer spent another night screaming himself silly as Costa Mesa lost its 18th straight game dating back to last season, 74-67.

It’s not as though a premium’s placed on a coach’s abilities to find some Zen-like state of equilibrium, so the voice-raising isn’t what bothers Palmer so much.

But what he’s yelling does.

“I have to tell the varsity players, ‘OK, dribble down the court, OK, pass it over there, OK shoot! Shoot!’ ” Palmer said, exasperated. “These are things I shouldn’t have to tell them. We’re instructing them while they’re playing, and we’re never going to win at the varsity level if you’ve got your coach instructing all five players what to do while they’re playing. It just can’t happen.”

Though Costa Mesa (0-17, 0-1 in league) outscored Estancia, 44-29, in the second half, it wasn’t enough to escape the 22-point rut they’d dug for themselves at halftime. The Mustangs’ 67 points were the most they’d scored all season.

Junior Troy McClanahan helped build Estancia’s cushy lead going four for four from behind the arc in the first half. He finished with 16 points.

“We just got too caught up,” Mustangs senior guard Mikey Molina said. “They got a lot of big shots on us and they came up with big threes. It’s hard to come back from a game when it’s three after three after three. We just came down on ourselves. If we’d kept the hole a little smaller, we could have come back, for sure.”

The Eagles (9-9, 1-0) led by as many as 24 in the first half.

“It was crucial,” Estancia Coach Agustin Heredia said of the early lead. “We were lucky we shot the ball well because they played harder than us in the second half. Well, not necessarily harder, but they picked up the intensity and we didn’t respond well, so that’s something we need to work on.”

The win put the Eagles, who have won four of their last five games, at exactly .500.

Estancia senior Mark Allred was behind most of the Mustangs’ first-quarter consternation. Allred had eight points in the first quarter, but the Mustangs’ double-team limited him to just four in the second and third periods. Allred took off in the fourth, though, as Costa Mesa was forced to foul him as they tried to stop the clock. Allred’s 10 for 10 free-throw shooting kept the Mustangs at bay.

“We wanted the ball in Mark’s hands,” Heredia said. “He’s a pretty heady player and he can penetrate and create shots, and they had to foul. We wanted the ball in his hands so they’d have to foul him.”

Led by Molina, Costa Mesa made a 10-0 run to pull within 10 in the fourth quarter, and the Eagles, who never trailed, led 54-44. Molina led the Mustangs with 26 points.

“We knew they were going to make a run,” Allred said. “We just had to be patient on offense and just play good defense.”

The Mustangs play at Laguna Beach Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. while Estancia will play at Calvary Chapel the same day at 5:30.

Costa Mesa and Estancia will meet again, Jan. 23 and Feb. 1. Next time, Molina’s hoping Costa Mesa won’t have to dig itself out of a hole, or if it does, that it won’t be as deep as Friday’s crater. Fourteen of the Mustangs’ 17 losses this season featured double-digit deficits. They’ve been falling, on average, by 27.7 points per game.

“Revenge is definitely on the lookout for us,” Molina said. “Hopefully we can get it.”

Orange Coast League

Estancia 74, Costa Mesa 67

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Est – Allred 27, McClanahan 16, Jones 12, Fryslie 9, Perez 6, Thomas 2, McKendry 2.

3-pt. goals – McClanahan 5, Jones 2, Allred 1.

Fouled out – Neumann.

CM – Molina 26, Millian 17, Gardner 8, Dye 5, Lefebvre 3, LeValley 3, Thompson 3, Thompson 2.

3-pt. goals – Gardner 2, Molina 2, Millian 1, Lefebvre 1, LeValley 1.

SORAYA NADIA McDONALD may be reached at (714) 966-4613 or at soraya.mcdonald@latimes.com.