Morro Bay girls basketball tops SLO 39-25. Mission Prep boys beat rival SLO
With the season winding down in San Luis Obispo County high school basketball action, Morro Bay’s girls squad moved one step closer to a league title sharing opportunity with a 39-25 win Friday over San Luis Obispo, the second place squad.
And in boys’ basketball, Mission Prep topped San Luis Obispo 68-45 at home in the “SLO Town Showdown” in front of a packed gym.
The Pirates (15-7, 9-1 Ocean League) came into the contest with a share of the Ocean League lead, tied with Mission Prep’s girls team, also with one loss in league.
Morro Bay relied on stifling defense to help limit the Tigers’ attack, led by junior Carys Villani, who averaged 15 points and 16 rebounds in wins over Templeton and Pioneer Valley last week.
In Friday’s game, Villani had 11 for the Tigers (10-14, 6-3). Mizuki Salomon-Gaspar added six points for SLO.
The Pirates were led in scoring by Jade McRae and Ashley Magday, who each had 11 points.
“It wasn’t our best game,” McRae said. “But we still pulled through and won so that felt good. We played well defensively.”
McRae said the Pirates were overthinking at times and not swinging the ball with passes from side to side as rapidly as they would have liked.
“We’ve definitely gotten better,” McRae said. “We just want to do well in our last two games against Pioneer Valley and Atascadero.”
Third year Morro Bay Coach Alex Engel said that his team “didn’t have a great shooting night tonight.”
“We came out a little anxious and were missing layups,” Engel said. “But what really anchored us was our defense. That has been our calling card all year. We can put up big numbers, but if have a bad scoring night you have to be able to defense. So, I’ve been harping on that all year.”
Engel said that the Tigers do a good job of getting the ball inside, and the Pirates mixed zone and man defense to thwart SLO’s attack.
The Tigers tried to force turnovers off the press.
“We have a press break that we normally run and had to call a time out because we weren’t running it right,” Engel said. “We call a time out and then ran it much better. It was working for them for awhile.”
Engel said his offensive scoring is pretty spread out and that’s the goal for the team, so defenses can’t hone in on one player.
“I often say ‘Share the ball. We don’t care who scores tonight as long as we’re taking good shots and playing good defense. Overall, we do a pretty good job of that.”
Morro Bay’s Fiona Durham contributed six points, Tailer Morrison had five, Sophie Graves had four and Azlyn Fitzwater had two.
Engel said that Morro Bay will need to keep its focus to close out the last two games against Pioneer Valley and Atascadero, the lowest squads in league standings, for a chance at a league title.
“Any team can win our league on a given night,” Engel said. “We’ll have to stay sharp and focused.”
Mission wins crosstown rivalry game
On the other end of town, the Royals’ boys basketball team (12-12, 7-4 Mountain League) beat SLO (8-16, 6-2 Ocean League) in a 68-45 nonleague contest.
Mission Prep got big nights from Jamar “J.J.” Howard (26 points) and Grant Callahan (23 points).
On senior night, the Royals capitalized on five 3-pointers from Callahan, a senior, and Howard, a junior, threw down some monstrous dunks.
“It was a lot of fun,” Callahan said. “We missed the crowd last year with COVID. It’s always fun to play in front of a big crowd like this.”
SLO was led by Simon Noel with 12, and Eli Smiley-Rooney and Jaden Pooler each had eight.
“Growing up and watching Mission Prep as a kid, it meant a lot to play in this game,” said Mission Prep’s Luke Jacobson, a sophomore. “I’m lucky that Coach T (Terrance Harris) and Coach (Kevin) Hitchen trusted me to play solid minutes. It’s a dream come true and I’m really excited for the future and what this team will accomplish.”
This story was originally published February 4, 2022 at 9:26 PM.
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