MISSION VIEJO – Capistrano Valley started off out of sync but found its game, and Dawson Baker got to the rim in the second half as the Cougars pulled away to beat Sunny Hills, 56-39, in a CIF-SS Division 2A second-round game at Capistrano Valley High on Friday.
“We finally made some layups,” Capo Valley coach Brian Mulligan said. “We had some really good players miss about nine layups. We did finally get to the hole a little bit easier late and got some key offensive rebounds.”
Capistrano Valley (22-6) will host the winner of Saturday’s Dos Pueblos-Saugus game in the quarterfinals on Tuesday.
Despite wanting to slow the game down, Sunny Hills (18-13) came out with a lead, 11-10, after a frenetic opening quarter.
“Early on, we were able to get some of the stuff we wanted,” Sunny Hills coach Joe Ok said, “but as the game started going, you could tell they started making adjustments. It was getting difficult for us trying to get to what we wanted to do.”
The Cougars got defensive stops in the second quarter and 3-pointers from Baker, Nick Draper and Daniel Ramsey to pull out to an eight-point halftime lead.
Baker then found his lane to the hoop in the third quarter and scored 10 of his game-high 27 points.
“We’re lucky to have a guy like Dawson that can do some stuff like that,” Mulligan said. “I think he was very frustrated with all the shots he was missing early.”
Sunny Hills still hung tough, got within three points in the third, and trailed by just seven points going into the fourth quarter.
Michael Callahan opened the quarter with two crucial 3-pointers around more Baker drives to push Capo Valley up by as many as 18 points.
“I think eventually what happened is we ran out of gas,” Ok said. “They have guys that have been playing like this all year. It was a possession game, and it started slipping away from us.”
Ryan Shaw led Sunny Hills with 12 points and two 3-pointers.
