Newport Harbor boys' basketball opens Sunset Conference with win over Laguna Beach

By Matt SzaboStaff Writer

Jan. 3, 2020 10:24 PM PT

The Newport Harbor High boys’ basketball team got to ring in the new year in front of its home fans on Friday night.

The Sailors’ first game of 2020, a Sunset Conference crossover game against Laguna Beach, was also Newport Harbor’s first home game of the season.

Newport Harbor executed the fundamentals well, enabling the Sailors to earn a 58-45 win over the Breakers.

Senior forward Robbie Spooner scored 22 points for Newport Harbor (15-4), which got some breathing room over Laguna Beach (11-6) late in the first half. The Sailors ended the half on a 14-2 run, capped by Spooner’s assist to senior forward Luke Bashore for a layup with one second remaining.

Newport Harbor took a 32-20 halftime advantage, and the lead never dropped below seven points in the second half. That was something that Sailors coach Bob Torribio liked to see, after his team went scoreless for nearly the first four minutes of the game until Spooner made a pair of free throws with 4:05 remaining in the first quarter.

The Sailors’ first field goal didn’t come until Bashore’s three-point play with 2:33 left in the quarter. However, the Sailors only trailed 8-7.

“Going against Laguna Beach, we know that coach [Bret] Fleming is going to do a great job with his guys,” Torribio said. “We started off pretty slow offensively, but we were defending. Although we weren’t executing offensively, guys were playing hard, and we’ve come to expect that from them.”

Bashore scored all 10 of his points in the first half for Newport Harbor. Junior guard Levi Darrow connected for 13 points, including a trio of three-pointers. The Sailors beat the Breakers for the second straight year in conference crossover play, improving their all-time record against Laguna to 37-8.

“To get a win in front of the home crowd feels nice,” Spooner said. “Also, we just stuck to our game plan really well. We rebounded nicely, and all five guys played hard on defense.”

Senior guard Ryan Miller scored seven points for the Sailors and also had the main defensive responsibilities against 6-foot-8 Laguna Beach junior Nolan Naess, who finished with 20 points.

Breakers senior guard Brooks Hogenauer added 10 points before fouling out in the fourth quarter.

“I definitely thought it was disappointing,” said Naess, whose team will host Edison in a conference crossover game on Wednesday at 7 p.m. “We didn’t really stick to the game plan very well, and they outhustled us and outworked us. We weren’t boxing out, and just all of those things led to us having a rough night.”

Newport Harbor also made 14 of 15 free throws, while Laguna Beach converted five of eight free throws.

“It speaks to the senior focus that we have,” said Torribio, whose team has a conference crossover game at Fountain Valley on Wednesday at 7 p.m. “We’ve got some young guys that come in for us and give us some good minutes, but we can’t say enough about our senior leadership right now. They’re coming to practice every day prepared. We’ve had some tough losses, but we have a ‘next game, next play’ mentality.”