RANCHO MARGARITA – Martin Luther King of Riverside overpowered Tesoro, 60-52, in a second-round game of the CIF-SS Division 1A boys basketball playoffs Friday night at Tesoro High.
The Wolves (20-7) advance to host Harvard-Westlake (18-11) in the third round on Tuesday. Harvard-Westlake defeated Kaiser (20-10) 52-50 on the road Friday night.
Wolves senior center Jordan Robinson took center stage against Tesoro (17-11), scoring 19 points with 11 rebounds — 10 in the second half — as well as four steals and five blocked shots. All were game highs.
Robinson had just two points in the first quarter, but the shots fell in the second, including an emphatic dunk and a second dunk on a put-back.
“It’s always a concentrated effort to get Jordan the ball in the post,” said MLK coach Jeff Dietz. “It’s just a matter of … (getting) him in position where he can do something with the ball. So we tried to get him the ball a little bit higher and he had some success there so we kept going to that.”
MLK also upped the intensity on defense in the second quarter by implementing a full-court press. It caused few Titan turnovers in the backcourt, but Tesoro struggled to advance the ball into the front court nearly every time down.
The Wolves used the press intermittently. Dietz said this was so Tesoro would not become accustomed to it.
Each side had three players in double figures. For the Titans they were senior Justin McCallop with 15 and sophomores Tristan and Tyler Broughton with 16 and 13, respectively. Tyler Broughton made 6 of 7 shots off the bench, including all three of his 3-point attempts.
The game seemed all but over when MLK had a 55-45 lead with 1:18 left in the fourth, but the Wolves struggled to put the Titans away at the free-throw line. Tesoro cut it to 55-49 with 48 seconds left.
The Wolves made 10 of 23 free throws in the quarter, including Robinson and junior wing Kazeem Salaam combining for 4 of 13 from the stripe. Salaam finished with 13 points; senior wing Ahmad Chambers added 10.
Senior guard Markell Wells hit four late free throws to put the game away.
