Edison boys’ basketball grinds out win over Marina

Edison High watched a comfortable lead disappear during a five-minute, fourth-quarter drought Friday night.

But the Chargers got two big stops in the final two minutes and Matt Palma sank two free throws with 20 seconds to play to outlast visiting Marina 44-37 in a Sunset League boys’ basketball opener.

David Atencio scored 15 points, Spencer Serven added 14 amid a superb defensive performance, and Josh Phillips grabbed 10 rebounds and blocked four first-half shots as Edison (11-5, 1-0 in league) took its first step toward defending its league title.

Next up for Edison on Wednesday is struggling Los Alamitos, which also won a share of the championship last season, and then on Friday its Newport Harbor, which is expected to battle the Chargers for this season’s crown.

Marina (10-7, 0-1), coming off a 3-23 campaign last season, trailed nearly the entire way but signaled it will be no pushover. The Vikings rallied from a 16-point deficit to within three on Jakob Alamudun’s 18-foot jumper with 2½ minutes to go, then had a chance to tie after the star junior forward grabbed Palma’s off-target three-point try with a little less than two minutes on the clock.

Edison quickly forced two turnovers, a Serven steal and a traveling violation, to lead to layups by Serven and Atencio. The Chargers then nailed down the victory when Alamudun, who scored 17 points, shot air balls on successive three-point tries and Serven made late free throws.

“It was a grinder,” Edison coach Rich Boyce said. “They grind on you, they play so well, they’re so well-coached. They do a lot of good things, and I just thought when we took a 16-point lead in the first half, we stopped doing the things that got us the 16-point lead. We started going one-on-one, instead of moving the ball.”

Edison, not a particularly good shooting team from outside, used a 17-1 run — fueled by four three-pointers on six possessions as it scored the 14 points of the second half — to nab a 23-7 advantage. Alamudun, quiet to that point, started to take charge, and the Vikings scored eight in a row to trim the deficit to eight.

Two more three-pointers early in the second half, by Palma and Serven, extended the Chargers’ advantage to 13, and they kept a double-digit edge until the fourth quarter. Then they went cold, missing four straight shots and two free throws and turning the ball over three times as Marina, behind Alamudun and Julian Babish, went on an 8-0 run to make it 38-35. The Vikings got no closer.

Dean Keller gamely battled Phillips underneath, scoring seven points and grabbing 12 rebounds for Marina.

“We made some big plays on defense,” Boyce said. “Spencer did a great job on Jakob, as good as anybody can do. It was a good team win tonight.”

*

Edison 44, Marina 37

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Marina 7 – 8 – 10 – 12 — 37

Edison 9 – 14 – 13 – 8 — 44

M – Alamudun 17, Keeler 7, Serour 6, Babish 6, Knapp 1.

3-pt. goals – Serour 1, Alamudun 1.

Fouled out – None.

Technicals – None.

E – Atencio 15, Serven 14, Palma 5, Phillips 4, Strauss 3, Headington 3.

3-pt. goals – Atencio 3, Serven 2, Palma 1, Strauss 1, Headington 1.

Fouled out – None.

Technicals – None.

SCOTT FRENCH is a contributor to Times Community News. Follow him on Twitter: @ScottJFrench