GARDEN GROVE – Bolsa Grande remained undefeated in the Garden Grove League with a 72-56 win over Garden Grove on Friday.
The visiting Matadors’ victory placed them in sole possession of first place in the league. Bolsa Grande is 4-0 in league play. Santiago, tied with Bolsa Grande for first going into Friday, dropped to 3-1 in league with its loss to Rancho Alamitos on Friday.
Bolsa Grande, 15-5 overall, plays Wednesday at Santiago which, like most Garden Grove League gyms, is a challenging place for visiting teams. The Matadors won the league championship last year with a 9-1 league record.
Justin Phan scored a season-high 18 points for the Matadors. Derick Tran added 15 points and Isaiah Moore contributed 10 points for Bolsa Grande.
The Matadors made 23 of their 49 shots for 47 percent. That type of accuracy had been missing, Phan said.
“We haven’t been able to get our shots in,” said Phan, a 5-foot-8 senior who is averaging 5 points a game. “We’ve been struggling shooting.”
Phan’s 3-pointer in the first quarter provided the game’s first points and put Bolsa Grande in the lead for good. The Matadors had a 16-9 lead at the end of the first quarter, 33-27 at halftime and took a 54-45 lead into the fourth quarter.
Garden Grove, 12-9 overall and 1-3 in league, was led by Jarden Harris’ 18 points and 10 rebounds, and Kyler Torres’16 points. The Argonauts, who finished in second place last season with an 8-2 league record and won the league championship the season before with a 10-0 league mark, likely will play the remainder of the season without leading scorer Sebastian Castro. Castro, a sophomore, has a broken finger that requires surgery.
Friday’s game was typical Garden Grove League basketball – a quick pace, plenty of ball movement on offense and aggressive defense. Bolsa Grande, although also short-handed with second-leading scorer Van Hau Phan sitting out as a precaution because of a knee issue, did all of that better than Garden Grove on Friday.
“We worked on sharing ball and defensively we played well,” Phan said.
Bolsa Grande coach Scott Snyder, in his 16th season coaching the Matadors, liked the team’s effort Friday.
“We fought really hard,” Snider said. “It all starts with Derick, our point guard. He’s a 120-pound kid but he plays a lot bigger than that.”
Contact the writer: sfryer@scng.com
