Boys’ 3-A Semifinal : CdM Comeback Falls Short, 56-54

Cliff Warren, Rolling Hills High School basketball coach, seemed almost reluctant to accept congratulations Tuesday night after his Titans defeated Corona del Mar, 56-54, in a Southern Section 3-A semifinal game in front of an overflow crowd of 2,500 at Orange Coast College.

“Good job,� one fan told Warren, shaking his hand.

Warren only shook his head.

It’s not such a good job when your team blows a 22-point second-period lead and has to rely on its opponent’s poor shooting in the final minutes to hold on for the victory.

It’s not such a good job when your team goes more than 10 minutes without scoring a field goal and scores only one point in the third quarter.

The top-seeded Titans got away with all this and more and earned their first berth in a championship basketball game. Rolling Hills (26-3) will play Saugus (21-8) in Saturday’s final in the Sports Arena.

The Titans reached the semifinals on the strength of two straight come-from-behind victories. Rolling Hills trailed Brea-Olinda by four points with 3 1/2 minutes left in the second round and won, 60-56. It trailed Centennial by five points with 3 1/2 minutes to go in the quarterfinals and won, 57-55.

But when the Titans finally did get a good lead--a 44-22 advantage with 2:15 remaining in the second period Tuesday night--they didn’t know how to handle it.

They became tentative on offense and seemed afraid to take outside shots. And when they did shoot, they didn’t have the kind of success they had in the first period, when they made 12 of 16 shots from the floor.

This, combined with an outstanding defensive effort by the Sea Kings, who used a tenacious man-to-man coverage that forced numerous second-half turnovers, led to the Titans’ downfall.

Corona del Mar (24-7) scored the last seven points of the first half to cut the deficit to 15 points, 44-29. The Sea Kings then outscored the Titans, 11-1, in the third quarter, as Rolling Hills missed all 10 of its shots.

Cameron Terry, who scored 15 points for the Titans, finally broke the spell when he opened the fourth quarter with a jump shot from the right corner that gave Rolling Hills a 47-40 lead.

But the Sea Kings came back to within one (49-48) when Markus Muller-Stach, who scored a game-high 22 points, followed a missed free throw with a basket. It was still a one-point game (51-50) after Chris Hook’s 15-foot bank shot with 2:23 left.

Then it was Corona del Mar’s turn to go cold. The Sea Kings missed their next seven shots, and the Titans came up with John Hardy’s jumper, Stuart Talley’s free throw and two more foul shots by Doug Gehr, who scored 19 points, to take a 56-50 lead with 42 seconds left.

Darren Morris’ follow shot with 20 seconds left made it 56-52, but Rolling Hills was able to run 13 seconds off the clock on their next possession before the Sea Kings fouled. Greg Thomas missed in the one-and-one situation and Morris drove for an uncontested layup with two seconds left to make it 56-54.

But Terry was able to pass the ball in to Gehr, and Rolling Hills ran out the clock.

Afterward, a relieved Warren had nothing but praise for the Sea Kings.

“That was a great comeback,� Warren told Corona del Mar Coach Paul Orris. “I mean, I didn’t like it, but it was truly beautiful. That (blowing a big lead) has never happened to us, and you have to give the credit to Corona del Mar. They took us completely out of our game.�