Woodbridge captures PCL championship

Woodbridge's boys basketball players felt pretty good when they left the court Monday night against Irvine.

The Warriors had captured a 65-55 Pacific Coast League victory over the Vaqueros assuring themselves of at least a share of the crown.

But they felt even better about 15 minutes later when they were informed by Coach John Halagan that Beckman had defeated second-place Corona del Mar, 56-51.

That meant the Warriors were outright champions. It is the 10th league title for Woodbridge (Bill Shannon won the first two) and first since 2006 and it came in Halagan's 20th year as the Warriors coach.

Ali Lodin led Woodbridge with 20 points.

The game was tied, 23-23, at halftime, but the Warriors broke open the game by outscoring Irvine, 21-12, in the third quarter.

"It's was our goal was all season and I'm glad we got it," Lodin said. "We have to learn to respect our opponents a little more. We picked it up in the second half when Halagan spoke to us in the locker-room."

Michael Scarlett scored 15 points and Austin Rouk added 14 for the Warriors.

Irvine (8-17, 0-9) was led by Matthew Kerns, who scored 19 points and Cameron Foster, who had 12 points.

"It feels good, we obviously don't want to share the thing," Halagan said immediately after the game. "It was a tough battle. I want to commend Irvine and Kris Klamberg and Steve Keith. We knew on their senior night they would play with a lot of emotion and a lot of intensity and they did a nice job of executing in the half-court in the first half and they were just cutting us up.

"Our guys were a little flat, it happens. In the second half, we went to the full-court trap and tried to speed the game up a little and fortunately for us, it worked."

Irvine started strong jumping to a 14-10 lead after one quarter, but the Warriors went on an 8-0 run at the start of the second quarter and wore down the Vaqueros in the second half.

"The third quarter got us," Klamberg said. "But they got a little more depth than us right now but I thought our guys played hard. That's all you can ask for now. We're playing a lot of young guys and they're getting a lot of minutes, so hopefully that can help us into next year.

"But give credit to them, they're a good senior-led team and obviously they've earned it."