Not your same Mustangs

In his first year as a head coach, Bryan Rice’s expectation was to just compete.

The job he took at his alma mater, Costa Mesa High as the boys’ basketball coach, won one game the previous season.

Rice had seen ugly seasons before. As a ball boy, the team lost so many games you might understand why the fifth-grader stopped retrieving balls if he decided to.

Eventually Rice grew up and he enrolled at Costa Mesa. The Mustangs continued their losing ways. Rice stuck with the program and earned his opportunity to join the varsity team his senior year.

Nothing changed.

“I don’t think we had a league victory,” Rice said.

Teams can salvage most losing seasons with a victory over their rival. When you lose, that’s all that really matters in the neighborhood.

But during his time at Costa Mesa, from 1996 to 1999, Rice said Costa Mesa never beat Estancia.

“We had a 20-year drought,” said Rice, who lived through some of it.

So when Rice returned to Costa Mesa to become the school’s fourth boys’ basketball coach in as many years, what did he expect?

“I don’t know if I expected to host a playoff game,” Rice said.

Costa Mesa is playing host to a first-round one tonight.

The Mustangs (10-15) open the CIF Southern Section Division IV-A playoffs against Cerritos Valley Christian (13-13) at 7:30 p.m.

The last home playoff game for Costa Mesa came in the 2005-06 season. These don’t come every year at this school.

The coach to last guide Costa Mesa in a home playoff game was Ryan Schachter. He’s also one of four coaches Mikey Molina has played for during his four years at Costa Mesa.

Schachter attended the Mustangs’ playoff clincher at Corona del Mar High, where he’s been coaching the past three seasons. Costa Mesa beat rival Estancia, 52-48, in an Orange Coast League playoff game deciding second place in league and the league’s No. 2 playoff entry.

Schachter rooted for his old team that Thursday night. He still looked surprised the Mustangs were able to beat Estancia for a second time this season. The feeling didn’t wear off at the end of the week.

“I talked to Ryan,” said Rice, referring to seeing Schachter at the playoff pairings gathering at the section’s Los Alamitos office Sunday afternoon. “He was pretty surprised.”

The Mustangs have shocked a lot of people.

One of the last times they have done so was in Schachter’s first season in 2004-05. Back then, Schachter led the program to its first playoff win in 42 years.

Rice has turned Costa Mesa around in just one season. He took a team finishing 1-26, 1-8 in league and made it believe it could win.

The walk-on coach told his players no one was going to walk over them this season. They listened. Six games into the season, Costa Mesa surpassed last season’s win total.

Molina, a senior now, was glad. The only returning starter from a year ago remembered what happened last season. The team recorded its lone victory in the regular-season finale to avoid the humiliation of going down as the program’s first winless team.

When the end of the season rolled around this time, Costa Mesa fought to continue playing. Molina led the way.

The guard scored nine of his 15 points in the fourth quarter, lifting the Mustangs past Estancia. Helping Molina, who was in foul trouble for most of the third, were words Rice offered.

“You don’t have to do it alone,” Rice told him.

“The team responds to that.”

Molina’s teammates, from Ben Lefebvre, to Brian Waldron, to Andrew Albers, to Jeff Dye, contributed.

Lefebvre not only slowed down Estancia’s three-point threat in Troy McClanahan, but the senior finished with 14 points, outscoring McClanahan by eight points.

“His numbers were zero, nine and six,” said Rice of McClanahan’s point totals in the three games against Costa Mesa this season. “He was averaging 14 or 15 points. We’d have a tough time if Mikey was shut down in a game. We were very excited to beat [Estancia] and get the home court advantage [in the first round].

“We’re playing a tough team [in Valley Christian], a bigger team than us [out of the Olympic League]. They’re the No. 11 seed and we’re not even seeded. We’ve been overmatched before, but if we work hard, take care of the fundamentals, we can be competitive.”

That’s all Rice expected in his first season, for his team to just compete. Costa Mesa has all season.

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