FULLERTON – Tesoro made plenty of turnovers but did plenty of things right to beat Yorba Linda, 58-52, Friday in a first-round game of the Orange Holiday Classic at Hope International University.
The Titans (5-7) committed 16 turnovers, seven of them in the second quarter. Their interior passing game and rebounding kept those turnovers from costing them the game.
Nick Pallas, a 6-foot-8, 245-pound senior forward, scored 12 points with 10 rebounds. At high or low post, Pallas got the ball to cutting teammates for easy baskets or sent the ball outside for a Tesoro 3-pointer.
Chandler White caught a couple of those kick-out passes for three 3-pointers. He finished with 11 points.
Tesoro’s Isaiah Mahmoud scored nine points including a crucial 3-pointer in the fourth quarter. Adrease Jackson, a 6-5 sophomore, also was a hub for the Titans’ offense and scored eight points.
Pallas said the Titans are at their best when their inside-outside attack is working.
“A lot of pounding it in down low,” Pallas said. “That’s been keeping other teams’ defenses off their game.”
Tesoro had lost three in a row, including a loss to Huntington Beach earlier this week in the Orange County North/South Challenge and back-to-back losses to St. Augustine of San Diego and to Santa Margarita in a tournament at Santa Margarita.
Isaac Douglass led Yorba Linda (10-4) with 22 points and nine rebounds. A 6-4 junior forward, Douglass is averaging 19 points a game.
Tesoro’s starting point guard Cooper McCarthy did not play because of a foot injury. Titans coach Steve Garrett said, sure, that contributed to the amount of turnovers. But he still expects the team to take better care of the basketball.
“We’ve got a turnovers issue,” he said. “That’s been a main problem.”
Mahmoud’s 3-pointer to open the fourth quarter gave the Titans an eight-point lead. They would get that lead back to eight, 49-41 on a layup by Devon Modster (eight points) from one of those Pallas inside passes.
The Mustangs rallied. Douglass scored 11 points in the fourth quarter. Alex Godoy made a 3-pointer with 1:15 remaining to tie it, 52-52. Thirty seconds laster, Pallas made two free throws to give Tesoro a 54-52 lead. White made two free throws with 17 seconds left to make it 56-52 and Mahmoud made an uncontested layup at the buzzer for the final six-point margin.
The Orange Holiday Classic is at Hope International University in Fullerton for the second year in a row. The tournament had been at Chapman University for years, but the past two years the Chapman men’s basketball team has had games at its gym during the post-Christmas week.
Also in the Orange Holiday Classic:
No. 3 Canyon 78, Beckman 72: Chandler Dignam scored 27 points and Nick Anderson scored 24 for the Comanches (9-2). Justin Reinhardt scored 19 points with five 3-pointers for Beckman (6-6). Beckman got 12 3-point baskets from seven different players.
Esperanza 71, Pasadena 56: Jarrett Brodbeck scored 27 points with four 3-pointers for the Aztecs (10-2).
No. 4 Foothill 52, San Juan Hills 34: Lucas Araujo’s 11 points led a balanced scoring effort by the Knights (11-1). Foothill plays Long Beach Jordan in a second-round game today at 5:10 p.m. at Hope University.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
