Eberhard back on wing helps Sea Kings fly

FULLERTON — One practice was all Corona del Mar High boys’ basketball coach Ryan Schachter needed, but the schedule at the North Orange County Championships wasn’t allowing it.

The Sea Kings played at the tournament Monday. And Tuesday. And Wednesday.

Finally, Schachter got some practice time on Thursday, and he used it to put senior Joe Eberhard — usually the trailer on offense — back on the wing.

Eberhard, in turn, showed Los Alamitos just how dangerous he is from that spot on the floor. He poured in a game-high 19 points, including a trio of three-pointers, to lead CdM to a 57-50 win over the Griffins in a ninth-place semifinal of the tournament Friday at Troy High.

“We wanted to get Joe back scoring a lot,” Schachter said. “He was having success on the wing over the summer. He probably averaged about 30 points per game.”

The big game against Los Alamitos matched the defending CIF Southern Section Division III-A champion Sea Kings against the Griffins, who as defending I-A champions are Orange County’s only other defending CIF boys’ basketball champion.

But CdM (6-2), which will play in the ninth-place game today at 1:30 p.m. at Sonora High, had plenty of stars besides Eberhard in the battle against Los Al (5-4).

Senior guard Erik Rask chipped in a season-high 12 points, senior forward Adam Brakeville had 10 and freshman guard Clayton Ragsdale hit three fourth-quarter free throws and dished out six assists.

“This will probably be the turning point,” Rask said. “We’ve been coming out a little flat lately, but we had a really hard practice [Thursday] and today it showed. They’re a really good team, and we came out and took it to them.”

Oh, yeah, then there was senior center Stefan Kaluz. The Brown University-bound standout, who came into the game averaging 21.4 points per game, scored a season-low eight and made just one field goal. It was the fewest points Kaluz, six of eight from the line, has scored since his sophomore year.

But defensively was where last year’s Division III-A Player of the Year shined Friday, collecting nine rebounds, blocking six shots and helping limit Griffins junior Clark Evans to eight points.

“This was the best defensive game I’ve seen Stefan play in the last two years,” Schachter said. “Normally he gets a lot more rebounds, but it’s a lot tougher to rebound against a 6-10 guy than it is against 6-3 guys. He did a great job defensively for us.”

The 6-10 guy — Los Alamitos senior center Corbin Moore — had a team-high 15 points, doing his best to rally his team in the fourth quarter after the Sea Kings led nearly the whole game. Moore’s free throws with 49 seconds to go cut CdM’s lead to 52-48. After Rask made a free throw, Griffins guard Dillon Ratleff scored with 30 seconds left to narrow the margin to three.

Brakeville then made two free throws with 22 seconds left to push CdM’s lead back to 55-50. After Los Al missed a layup, Kaluz corralled the rebound, then nailed two more free throws for the final margin of victory.

“It was the most intense we’ve played,” Schachter said. “I was very pleased with our energy, more than anything. Hopefully this will propel us.”

And it was Kaluz, though not scoring much, who was setting up shots for his teammates.

“Their goal was to take Stefan out of the game, they were doubling down on him,” Eberhard said. “The guards, we just had to hit our open shots, which we did. We had to step it up.”

North Orange County

Championships

Ninth-place semifinal

Corona del Mar 57, Los Alamitos 50

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Corona del Mar – Eberhard 19, E. Rask 12, Brakeville 10, Kaluz 8, Ragsdale 3, K. Rask 3, Gallian 2.

3-pt. goals – Eberhard 3.

Fouled out - None.

Technicals - None.

Los Alamitos – Moore 15, Ratleff 9, Evans 8, Richardson 8, Chung 3, Cheek 2, Berger 2, Cleeland 2, Oglesby 1.

3-pt. goals – Chung 1.

Fouled out - None.

Technicals - None.

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or by e-mail at [email protected].