Corona del Mar boys’ basketball opens Beach Bash with easy win

The Corona del Mar High boys’ basketball team began its season at home on Monday.

Gone was D.J. Rodman, the cornerstone of the team last season. The junior transferred to JSerra almost two months before the Sea Kings’ CdM Beach Bash tournament.

The Sea Kings did not seem to miss Rodman in their opener.

Behind the guard tandem of sophomore John Humphreys and senior Kevin Kobrine, CdM cruised to a 64-34 victory over Westminster.

Humphreys and Kobrine led CdM with double-digit scoring efforts, finishing with 16 and 11 points, respectively.

“I told the guys there was going to be a lot of mistakes and that you can’t get upset with them, because it is the first game, and [you have] to play through them and play hard and compete through the mistakes,” CdM coach Ryan Schachter said. “It was ugly [at times], but we got in a rhythm, John got in a rhythm, and Kevin was good going to the basket. I thought our guards had a first good game.”

CdM had control of the lead for the entire game and used its defense to hinder the Westminster offense. With that, 12 of the Sea Kings’ 14 players scored in the contest. The Sea Kings combined to make nine three-pointers.

Junior guard Jake Hamilton scored all six of his points, both three-pointers, in the first quarter to jump-start the CdM offense. The Sea Kings took an 18-9 lead heading into the second.

The Sea King defense really put the clamps down in the second quarter by allowing only five points. Kobrine, who is heading to UCLA to play men’s volleyball, led CdM with 11 points by halftime, helping the Sea Kings go up 36-14.

Things got testy in the third quarter.

CdM senior guard Ben Coffman got into foul trouble, prompting Humphreys and junior Connor Schimmelpfennig to contribute more, Schimmelpfennig came off the bench. A technical foul was called on coach Schachter with 6½ minutes left in the third, resulting in more free throws in favor of Westminster, but CdM was still able to outscore the Lions in the quarter and take a 51-24 lead heading into the fourth.

Westminster (0-1) looked to junior wing Isaiah Lee on offense for most of the night. Lee ended with 14 points, as he got most of the load in the last quarter.

“We have a longs ways to go,” Schachter said. “I think we have a lot of potential and we should be able to do some good things this year, but we have to get a lot better defensively. Westminster junks it up defensively so it’s hard to get into rhythm and run offense. It’s hard to tell where we are at with our offense because it was such a transition game. It’s difficult to assess how well we did in the half court, but I think we got some good things to build off of.”

CdM will continue play in the 12-team Beach Bash on Wednesday when it faces Lawndale Leuzinger at 7:30 p.m. Leuzinger and CdM reached the CIF Southern Section quarterfinals in their respective playoff divisions last season, the Olympians in Division 2A and the Sea Kings in Division 1A.

Leuzinger, Santa Margarita, a CIF Open Division quarterfinalist in 2016-17, and Edison are three of the top teams in the six-day tournament. The Sea Kings, Edison and Costa Mesa are the three local schools in the tournament.

“I’m looking forward to hopefully competing and having a chance at the end of the game,” Schachter said of facing Leuzinger. “Hopefully we can execute offensively and limit turnovers, then we will be in good shape.”

As for not having Rodman, who averaged 20.3 points and 6.5 rebounds per game with the Sea Kings last season, Schachter wished his former player well.

“Glad to see he’s had a great start to his season [at] JSerra,” Schachter said in a text message. “Hope he has an amazing year.”

*

Corona del Mar 64, Westminster 34

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Westminster 9 – 5 – 10 – 10 — 34

Corona del Mar 18 – 18 – 15 – 13 — 64

W – Lee 14, Phung 7, Nguyen 4, Lee 4, Martinez 3, Vu 2.

3-pt. goals – Lee 2, Phung 1, Martinez 1.

Fouled out – None.

Technicals – None.

CdM – Humphreys 16, Kobrine 11, Sadeghi 9, Hamilton 6, Stone 6, Griffin 4, Coffman 2, Garza 2, Flood 2, Thabit 2, Schimmelpfennig 2, Olson 2.

3-pt. goals – Hamilton 2, Humphreys 2, Stone 2, Sadeghi 2, Kobrine 1.

Fouled out – None.

Technicals – Schachter.

JUAN CARLOS GONZALEZ is a contributor to Times Community News: Follow him on Twitter: @JGonzalezSports