Tigers, Bulldogs pick up wins in Imperial tourney
IMPERIAL — Tuesday was the first day of the Tiger Classic, the varsity boys’ basketball tournament hosted by Imperial High School.
Four games were scheduled to be played, including two in the Tigers’ own gym.
The first of these was a 6 p.m. matchup between the home team and the Criminals of Yuma High.
This game figured ahead of time to break wide for Imperial, but despite entering the game with a paltry 2-6 record, the Criminals swung hard at the Tigers in the game’s opening minutes.
They aggressively attacked the basket and were able to generate some downhill offense to go blow for blow with the home squad. At the end of the period, they led 20-19.
But that lead was mostly smoke and mirrors.
The Tigers were far from perfect in the first quarter, but their tiny deficit was largely due to their missing quite a few shots at the rim. They were getting to their spots with good off-ball movement and quick passes and obviously outworking the Criminals on the boards, but they just weren’t converting their heady play into points.
That changed in the second. The Tigers started getting some friendly bounces and Haider Awan came on with a couple of bench threes, and all of the sudden they were up 46-31 and it was halftime.
The Criminals came out after the break and tried to mount a comeback, but it was nothing doing.
The Tigers did a controlled burn and zoomed back in style, winning 8064 thanks to a balanced attack that saw five players — Robert Quintero (16), Haider Awan (16), Jordan Reed (14), Julio Chavez (11) and Tony Moreno (10) — finish with double figures in scoring.
After the game coach, Dave Milan was pleased with his team’s effort in shaking off their first-quarter funk.
“We came out a little flat,” he said, “but when we got our legs under us, we played well.
“There were no adjustments to be made it was just getting out there and doing what needed to be done.”
The second game of the evening — Calexico versus Calipatria — followed a similar script, close early, not so much late.
The game started out as a track meet, with both squads zooming up and down the court with apparent abandon.
The Hornets were able to take an early 12-6 lead, largely thanks to the isolation theatrics of one Hugo Cervantes, but the Bulldogs were able to punch back.
Calexico drew even with under a minute to go in the frame on a Matthew Tabarez trey at the top of the key and took the lead for good at 15-12 on another Tabarez long gun soon after.
Like the Tigers, the Bulldogs used crisp passing and controlled transition assaults to bury the Hornets under an avalanche of easy buckets.
Calexico has a deep team, looking to have a nine- or 10-man rotation and two strong ballhandlers in Tabarez and Fabian Reyna. They can bring the heat in waves and Calipatria couldn’t take the attrition.
Ultimately, the Bulldogs took it 70-56, led by 19 points from Tabarez, 17 from Reyna and 16 from freshman big man Julian Beltran.
Postgame, Coach Hugo Estrada praised the Bulldogs’ rebounding efforts.
“Rebounding has been a key,” he said. “We’re not the tallest team, so we have to do a good job finding bodies on the floor (and boxing out).”
He also felt they did a good job defensively.
“The kids came out playing hard defense,” he said, “and they got a lot of deflection steals, and that kind of put us over the top today.”
But he doesn’t want them getting complacent despite their 5-1 record.
“It’s a long tournament, a competitive tournament,” he said. “This is just the beginning. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves … but these kids work hard, so I’m very proud of them.”