Tars tumble on road

IRVINE — One point is all that separated Newport Harbor High from Woodbridge last month.

One shot at the end might have evened the boys’ basketball game back then.

“We actually didn’t really know the clock,” Newport Harbor Coach Bob Torribio said. “We didn’t get the shot we were looking for at the end of the game the first time.”

The second time against Woodbridge the Sailors got their shots. They just struggled making them.

Floaters in the lane, baseline jumpers, layups, three-pointers, free throws, you name them, they proved difficult for Newport Harbor to convert.

In the second half, the Warriors broke the game open and won, 60-43, at home Wednesday and Torribio feels the Sailors let them run away with the nonleague game.

The interim coach blamed it on the Sailors’ mindset.

“When you start missing shots [there’s] something inside your head that makes you think that you don’t have to play defense, but it should be the reverse [effect],” said Torribio, whose team was 11 for 47 from the floor, two for 15 from three-point range and 18 for 29 from the free-throw line.

“The first couple of guys we had in the game missed a couple of shots and decided they didn’t want to defend. We didn’t buy into what our philosophy has been all along, which is defend first and then offense will come.”

The offense never came and Newport Harbor (4-10) suffered yet again.

Through 14 games, the Sailors have matched last season’s loss total. Sunset League play hasn’t even started.

It gets underway Friday and it won’t be easy. Newport Harbor opens with defending league champion Los Alamitos, the team the Sailors have finished second to the previous two seasons.

With a lot of new faces and losing last season’s Sunset League Co-MVP in Kyle Caldwell to graduation and Coach Larry Hirst to a one-year sabbatical, Newport Harbor can’t afford to stray away from what has made the program successful the last 12 seasons.

Hirst’s teams built a reputation for competing until the end. Twelve straight playoff appearances are a result of the hard work.

Woodbridge Coach John Halagan is familiar with the Sailors’ battles of the past, including the one in which his Warriors prevailed, 58-57, in a pool-play game at the Irvine World News Tournament on Dec. 16.

Halagan’s Warriors (9-7) used to compete with the Sailors twice in the Sea View League before Newport Harbor moved to the Sunset League in the 2006-07 season.

At times in the first half, the Sailors showed signs of physical play Wednesday.

“I told my guys that if we don’t ratchet it up a notch we’re in trouble,” Halagan said.

The Warriors led, 27-19, at halftime and never found themselves in a hole. They created numerous ones for the Sailors by swarming their guards and trapping one of their better shooters in Chris Anderson.

Anderson gave Newport Harbor a short-lived lead early in the first quarter on a three-pointer. For the next 26 minutes, Woodbridge shut out the junior.

Multiple bodies forced Anderson to give up the ball or take tough shots. The goal was to “get the ball out of Anderson’s hands because he’s really a catalyst for them,” Halagan said.

With Anderson in a shooting funk, no one stepped up to trigger the Sailors’ offense in the third quarter. Newport went one for 15 from the floor and fell behind, 44-24, on center Nick Gstrein’s buzzer-beating jumper.

Gstrein came off the bench and outscored the Sailors by himself in the quarter. The center scored seven of his 11 points in the third. Newport Harbor managed just five points.

“We thought the learning curve was over and tonight we didn’t show that,” Torribio said. “We’re trying to have fun. Tonight probably didn’t look too much like it.”

Nonleague

Woodbridge 60, Newport Harbor 43

SCORE BY QUARTERS

NH – Davis 8, Anderson 7, Friend 7, Bagby 5, Holmes 4, Leggett 4, Seeber 3, Shaw 2, Rios 2, Fletcher 1.

3-pt. goals – Anderson 1, Davis 1.

Fouled out – None.

WB – Lambert 12, Gstrein 11, Shayeg 6, Johnson 6, Kulich 6, Moore 6, T. Payne 5, Dibiase 4, McVety 3, J. Payne 1.

3-pt. goals – McVety 1, T. Payne 1, Kulich 1.

Fouled out – None.

DAVID CARRILLO PEÑALOZA may be reached at (714) 966-4612 or at david.carrillo@latimes.com.