SANTA ANA – Tustin’s boys basketball team earned bragging rights in the city with a 43-42 nonleague victory over Foothill in front of a capacity crowd at Foothill Wednesday night.
No. 8 Tustin (14-2) outscored No. 3 Foothill, 21-18, in the second half.
“It’s a huge game for the kids and a huge game for the city,” said Tustin coach Ringo Bossenmeyer. “They’ve gotten the best of us the past couple of years.
“It’s always a war and sometimes one ball bounces a certain way and you’re on the fortunate end.”
George Wilson scored 19 points and T.J. Shorts 17 to lead the Tillers.
“It was real big for Tustin,” Wilson said. “We haven’t brought it (a victory) back for the last couple of years.”
Foothill (13-3) was led by Riley O’Hern who scored 16 points and hit two 3-pointers.
The Knights were playing with heavy hearts. One of their top players, 6-foot-4 senior guard-forward Andrew Ammann, has been hospitalized since the weekend after suffering a head injury in an apparently fall at home, according to Foothill coach Rusty Van Cleave.
Ammann’s father is Concordia basketball coach Ken Ammann.
Foothill players came out in warm-up T-shirts before the game with Ammann’s jersey No. 4 printed on the backs of the shirts. Players and fans also signed a get-well poster which will be taken to Ammann in the hospital.
Ammann is showing signs of improvement, Van Cleave said.
“He was pretty foggy until last night,” said Van Cleave before the game. “He kind of broke out of it. I got a chance to spend some time with him today and he was very coherent.
“He’s just going to have a little road to recovery that’s going to take a while. It could be a month or two or a little longer, maybe less. It just depends on how everything comes back.
“We don’t know if he hit his head and had a seizure or he had a seizure and fell and hit his head, because no one witnessed it and he has no history of having any seizures. But it’s obviously on our minds.”
Ammann was an all-tournament player at last week’s Orange Holiday Classic and had been looking forward to Wednesday’s game, said Foothill center Eric Patton.
“It’s sad to have him out of the lineup and sad that he couldn’t be here, but he’s doing a lot better,” Patton said. “That’s bringing peace of mind to the whole team and we’re just trying to go out there and win for him.
“He wanted to be here so bad. When the accident first happened, and they were trying to talk to him, all he would talk about was the Tustin game and how bad he wanted to be there. It’s really sad we couldn’t do that for him.”
Foothill came out with plenty of emotion. The Knights overcame a 12-11 deficit after the first quarter to take a 24-22 halftime lead. But Tustin was too tough down the stretch.
Wilson and Shorts scored six of Tustin’s nine points in the final quarter.
Shorts drove through traffic down the lane and with heavy defensive pressure scored a layup to put Tustin ahead, 42-39, with 22 seconds remaining.
“I was driving to the basket and I saw a crease and I just put it up and had a nice touch on it and it crawled in,” said Shorts. “After that, I think I knew our team was going to take that victory.”
Foothill was unable to convert a 3-point attempt at the other end and Tustin’s Josh DeBest rebounded and was fouled. DeBest sank one of two free throws to make it 43-39.
Reed Nakakihara sank a 3-pointer at the buzzer for Foothill to account for the final margin.
Contact the writer: tburt@ocregister.com
