Varsity Stages Epic Comeback Against Tesoro

SC 54  Tesoro 47
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​The Tritons lost by 1 to Tesoro in the first round of league and things were not looking good early in the second game, played at Tesoro.  Tesoro jumped to an early 17-4 first quarter lead, and was up 30-16 at half.  But playing without their leading scorer, Jacob Nemeth, who was sidelined with an injury, the Tritons came out in the second half with a swarming defense and clawed their way back into the game.  After cutting the lead to 11 by the end of the third, the Tritons took over in the fourth and outscored Tesoro 24-6 in route to a key 54-47 victory.  While still down by 2 late in the fourth, Anthony Smetona hit a huge three-pointer from the corner that gave the Tritons a lead that they would not relinquish.  Mario Medrano found his way the basket and got fouled for a few huge “and-ones” that cut into the lead.  Chris Kane got fouled shooting a 3 and calmly knocked down his free-throws to cut into the lead.  Luke Powell came off the bench and hit a huge 3 to cut into the lead.  Jay Baggs’ pressure defense helped keep the Titons to only 6 points in the fourth.  Max Marshall and Josh Walker fought minor foul trouble but managed to stay in the game and controlled the inside against Tesoro’s bigs.  Nick Martino and Zeeshan Ihani had key buckets, rebounds and defense.  The bench kept the team in the game and never gave up.  In other words, in a total team effort, the Tritons staged and epic comeback to move to 3-2 in league, with 3 to play.  The final scoring statistics are believed to include Smetona with 15; Kane 11; Marshall 8 and Medrano 8; Powell 5; Ihani 4; Walker, Martino and Baggs 2.  The tritons play at Trabuco on Wednesday, and have Aliso Niguel at home on Friday for Senior Night.