ORANGE COUNTY PREP BASKETBALL : Coast Christmas Tournament : Diablos Need 5 Overtimes : Herdman, Matthews Lead Mission Viejo to Marathon Win

Mission Viejo High School has a couple of pretty good players in Jeff Herdman and Todd Matthews.

They shoot, rebound, take the charge, a couple of cracker jack kids those two. Oh, sometimes it takes them a while to get it all in working order.

Take the Diablos’ 75-71 victory over El Toro Tuesday in the final of the Coast Christmas Tournament at Estancia High School. Take it to five overtimes, which is the time Mission Viejo--mainly Herdman and Matthews--needed to finally defeat El Toro.

Between them, Herdman and Matthews scored 18 of Mission Viejo’s 22 overtime points.

Herdman, a 6-foot 6-inch forward, scored 10 of his 18 points in overtime. He scored four points in the fifth and final overtime.

It was Herdman’s layup with 2:26 left that gave Mission Viejo a 71-69 lead in the fifth overtime. El Toro held the ball until 49 seconds were left, then guard Brett Johnson, who ended up with 18, missed a jump shot.

After gaining possession, Matthews, a 6-2 guard, bounced a pass to Herdman in the low post, Herdman made the basket to give Mission Viejo (9-2) a 73-69 lead with 30 seconds left.

After another El Toro miss, Matthews made two free throws with 13 seconds left, to give the Diablos a 75-69 lead and a lock on the tournament championship.

Matthews scored eight points in overtime, and led Mission Viejo with 20 points. Many of his points came as he posted low on El Toro’s 6-0 Mack Powell.

“We wanted to take advantage of anything like that,� said Bob Minier, Mission Viejo coach. “If something like that presents itself, you’ve got to go to it.�

Herdman and Matthews were each named to the all-tournament team, Herdman was named the tournament’s most valuable player.

El Toro center Cory Wayland scored 21 points, most from inside the key, before fouling out in the fifth overtime. El Toro (9-4) was led in scoring by forward Eric Speaker who had 22, most from outside. Speaker made numerous long-range jump shots over the Mission Viejo zone.

In other Coast Christmas Tournament games:

Edison 61, Irvine 57--Mike Henderson scored 29 points and Scott DeStefano added 12 to lead the Chargers in the third-place game. Jerry Petersen scored 16 to lead the Vaqueros. Mike O’Rourke and Matt Norton each had 14.

Fontana 87, University 76--Mike Flynn scored 28 points and Sean Rooks had 26 to lead the Steelers (11-2) in the fifth-place game. Forward Steve Stolzoff had 31 points and center Lasse Glassen 30 for University (9-4).

Corona del Mar 64, Estancia 45--Markus Muller-Stach scored 24 points to lead the Sea Kings in the seventh-place game. Brian Tift led the Eagles with 14.

Long Beach Jordan 60, Cypress 54--Fred Wilson scored 13 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter to lead Jordan (7-4) to the consolation championship. Frantz Reyes led Cypress (4-7) with 20 points and 13 rebounds.

Hoover (Glendale) 64, Huntington Beach 62--Joe Velasquez scored 23 points and had 10 rebounds to lead Hoover to 11th place. Kevin Brazzel had 25 points and Jeff Flory 13 points and 8 rebounds for the Oilers (4-8).