ANAHEIM – Myles Franklin scored 22 points to lead Villa Park to a 67-50 nonleague victory over longtime rival Canyon on Friday night in a packed and raucous Canyon High gym.
With the teams in different leagues this year, the schools wanted to make sure they would still get a chance to play this year so they scheduled two nonleague meetings.
“It doesn’t matter when you play them or where you play them. Whatever gym it’s in, it’s always like that,” Villa Park coach Kevin Reynolds said of the fans’ strong support for both teams.
“It’s as good a rivalry as there is in Orange County.”
After taking a lead early in the first quarter, the Spartans never trailed. They held a three-point edge after the first quarter and a four-point lead at halftime.
The first half of the third quarter was extremely sloppy. The teams combined for 11 fouls in the first 4:15, but between the fouls, Villa Park (4-1) started to build a more comfortable lead.
The Spartans’ lead reached 13 points, but as the fouls mounted, so too did the Comanches’ free throws. Canyon (2-3) cut into Villa Park’s lead despite making just two field goals in the quarter.
“We are very long,” Reynolds said. “Sometimes we don’t always play as long as we should, but I thought we did tonight and created some problems.”
Jason Reed scored 10 of his 12 points in the fourth quarter.
Julian Franklin finished with 12 points.
Villa Park will host Canyon on Jan. 28.
“Normally there are league championship ramifications,” Reynolds said of the Canyon and Villa Park rivalry. “It was very weird to be playing them in the preseason.”
