The defending champion Christian Learning boys varsity basketball team put on a convincing show of offensive power as they downed Cooperative team 55-18 Thursday in the Cooperative gym.
The Eagles jumped out to a quick 10-2 led in the first quarter and were never seriously challenged by a young and inexperienced Jaguar team that was clearly overmatched.
The victory was all thge more impressive in that Christian Learning was playing without seniors Jeff Stabler and Kyle Swope, who were away on a senior trip to Brazil.
While the season is just starting it appears that it could see a resumption of he ancient rivalry -- now spanning half a decade -- between Christian Learning and Cambridge.
Those two teams, both of whom won their opening games by big scores, will clash at Cambridge next week in a Friday the Thirteenth showdown that could prove to be an crucial early season test. (Get your tickets early.)
Six players scored for Christian Learning, led by freshman Andre Larsen with 15 points. Next came Andrew Burgin, a tenth grader who sat out last year, with 14. He was followed by Tim Zimmerman with nine, Danny Canaviri with seven, Paul Estes with six, and Mark Salinas with four.
For Cooperative, Jose Alfredo Abuawad had 11 points, Andres Shin six, and Diego Morales 2.
Knights victors over Griffins, 46-26
A reassembled and retooled Cambridge boys varsity overcame an early challenge by International, and then went on to roll up an impressive 46-25 win in the International gym Thursday.
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GOING TO THE HOOP -- Cambridge's Alvaro Lopez goes up for a lay-up against a heavy Griffin defensive effort.
Jonatan Muñoz, International
International, which won its opening game against Cooperative last week, looked to be going for two in a row as it jumped out to an 8-4 lead at the end of the first quarter, aided by great rebounding from its big men, Ernando Tesch and Mario Rohrman.
The Griffins were still very much in the game at halftime, although the smaller, but quicker, Cambridge team had taken a 17-13 lead.
The Knights seem to get really it together in the second half, and played with increasing speed and confidence as they outscored International 14 to 6 in the third period, and 15-7 in the final stanza.
The Knight team, which has only two players who were starters at the beginning of last year, seemed to be learning, as the game progressed, how to play nicely with each other.
They also seemed to increase the intensity of their defensive effort, containing (though not stopping) International star David Huang by consistently forcing the left-handed guard to go to his right.
The Big Red team substituted freely toward the end, and actually seemed to have better bench strength than in past years when it has won champlonships. (Last year Cambridge tied with Christian Learning for first place during the regular season, then finished third in the post-season tournament.)
Cambridge had a nicely balanced scoring attack, getting 12 points from Tae Han Kook and 11 from Alvaro Lopez, and 10 from Daniel Kim. Kim had two three-pointers and Kook had one. Jose Ribera had nine points and Fabricio Suberana had four.
Despite all the attention paid to him, Huang still managed to lead the Griffin attack with 12 points. Tesch added five, Maycol Villavicencio had three (on a three-pointer), while Jan Ivo Sochtig and Alejandro Rios had two ponts each.
