Boys’ Basketball: Sailors atop Sunset League
It’s not often that you can associate the Newport Harbor High boys’ basketball team with first place in the Sunset League, but that’s where the Sailors are two games into league play.
Newport Harbor remained atop the league with a 53-40 win at home against Fountain Valley on Wednesday night. The Sailors have won their first two games in league for the first time since the 2009-10 season.
These Sailors are off to an impressive start in league, each win has been by double digits. Charlie Stassel led the way with 18 points, four rebounds and three steals, while Brandon Phillips finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds. Collin Pipkin added 11 points and three steals.
“We’re not always the sharpest team, but we always battle,” Newport Harbor Coach Bob Torribio said. “Everybody that watches us play always kind of uses the same word [to describe us]. The word is ‘Scrappy.’
“When you’re playing Huntington Beach, you know [the Oilers are] going to compete, you know they’re going to get after you, so you had better be ready to be scrappy.”
Newport Harbor was more than just scrappy, it was efficient. The Sailors, ranked No. 10 in the CIF Southern Section Division 2AA poll, improved to 16-3 overall by playing sound defense, moving the ball well and shooting the ball at a 52.9% clip.
The only area of concern for Torribio was at the free-throw line. His team went 14 for 26 from the charity stripe.
“We’re going to spend [Thursday on free throws],” said Torribio, knowing his Sailors will have to improve their free-throw shooting to contend with league favorites Los Alamitos and Edison.
Next for the Sailors is a first-place showdown at Los Alamitos (15-3, 2-0 in league) on Friday at 7 p.m. The Griffins, who split the league crown with Edison last season, have owned the Sailors, who have finished third in league the past two seasons. The Griffins have beaten Newport Harbor by an average of 21.5 points per game in the last four meetings.
“On paper, they’re better than us,” Torribio said of the Griffins, the No. 8 team in Division 1AA. “To beat a team that’s better than you, you got to make free throws.”
The Sailors’ last win against the Griffins came at Los Alamitos, on Feb. 7, 2013. Players like Stassel, Phillips, Nate Harding and Andrew Laidlaw were freshmen back then.
The four are seniors now for Torribio, and they all start, along with Pipkin, a junior point guard. The Sailors’ starting unit helped Newport Harbor hand Huntington Beach its first league setback and beat the Oilers (8-10, 1-1) for the fifth time in six tries.
The first quarter got off to a sloppy start, both teams combined for five turnovers in the first 85 seconds. The Sailors and Oilers wound up with 11 first-quarter turnovers.
The lone highlight from the first eight minutes was Stassel’s alley-oop dunk. Pipkin, from behind the arc on the right side, threw a pass to Stassel, who took off near the left baseline, getting his hands on the ball to finish the play at the rim.
Stassel also fired up Newport Harbor at the start of the second quarter. The guard made a three-pointer 21 seconds into the quarter, recording the Sailors’ first successful three. They had missed their first four three-pointers.
Stassel couldn’t miss. He also converted two layups in a 21-second span, giving the Sailors an 18-9 lead with 6:30 left in the first half. Newport Harbor scored the first seven points in the second quarter, thanks to Stassel.
Newport Harbor was a perfect six-for-six shooting in the first 5½ minutes in the second quarter. Pipkin made a nice baseline layup after a good pass from Harding, and then Phillips went to work after Laidlaw fed him the ball, leading to two baskets in the paint.
The Sailors missed their final three shots from the field and two from the free-throw line in the final two minutes, and they still went into halftime with a 26-18 lead. Huntington Beach managed to cut the deficit in half early in the third quarter, but Zach Blaine hit a three-pointer, sparking an 11-1 run by Newport Harbor, which went up, 39-25.
The Sailors pushed the lead back to 14 points right after Sean Strom picked up his fifth foul and a technical foul with 5:42 left to play. Pipkin made both free throws and one of the two technical foul shots. After the Sailors inbounded the ball, Pipkin’s layup extended Newport Harbor’s lead to 46-32. Pipkin scored five points in a three-second span.
“It is [tough],” said Huntington Beach Coach Billy Thompson of losing Strom, who went into the game as the Oilers’ No. 2 scorer, behind Noah Gonzalez, who failed to score against the Sailors. “When you’re on the road in the Sunset League, you have to remain poised and under control. I thought we did that for the most part tonight, but we got a little rattled and lost our composure, which is something that we can’t have happen in [the] Sunset League as tough as it is.”
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Sunset League
Newport Harbor 53, Huntington Beach 40
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Huntington 9 – 9 – 10 – 12 — 40
Newport 11 – 15 – 13 – 14— 53
HB – Karidakis 14, Klein 6, Slack 5, Wilson 4, Moore 3, S. Sueda 2, Mitchel 2, Strom 2, Benitez 1, Brodt 1.
3-pt. goals – Karidakis 2.
Fouled out – Strom.
Technicals – Strom.
NH – Stassel 18, B. Phillips 15, Pipkin 11, Blaine 5, Harding 3, Laidlaw 1.
3-pt. goals – Stassel 2, Blaine 1.
Fouled out – Harding.
Technicals – None.
