Hawks cruise to 70-17 victory over visting York
The Anzar boys basketball team could get used to this. After overcoming years of futility to land in the Central Coast Section Division V playoffs, the Hawks made sure to make their opener count.
No. 4 Anzar, hosting a playoff game in its first-ever CCS appearance, ran all over No. 13 York, to the tune of a 70-17 blowout victory.
“I had a feeling we were going to overwhelm them,” said Hawks head coach Ed Cecena.
Overwhelming their visitors meant racing to a 19-6 lead by the end of the first quarter. It meant shutting out York )9-4) in a 19-0 second quarter. And it meant watching the Hawks’ reserves continue the pummeling as the starters took the second half off.
Anzar began the contest with a pressing defense that created a number of fast break opportunities. Once the Hawks had a comfortable lead five minutes into the game, Cecena called off the press and switched to a traditional man-to-man defense.
“We just overwhelmed them with our press,” said Cecena. “They just couldn’t handle our ball pressure.”
Scott Benson again starred for Anzar, scoring a game-high 24 points and grabbing 10 rebounds in a half game’s worth of action. Stephen Mockabee scored 12 points on 6-of-8 shooting and Adrian Monroy contributed a solid effort at point guard with four points and four assists.
“He’s doing a great job of running our offense,” said Cecena of Monroy. “He’s not scoring a lot, but he’s distributing the ball and controlling the tempo of our offense.”
The big lead gave all of the Hawks ample playing time and plenty of scoring opportunities. All 11 players scored as Anzar (14-10) proved far too much for charter-school York.
As the Hawks advanced to play No. 5 Eastside Prep in the quarterfinals, Cecena warned his players not too expect such a lopsided game.
“I just hope it doesn’t get us too overconfident,” said Cecena of the fallout from the easy win. “Sometimes these games tend to do more harm than good. It’s not going to be this easy in the next round.”
Eastside Prep advanced by defeating No. 12 Anchorpoint Christian by a score of 61-27 last night.
The Anzar-Eastside Prep quarterfinal match will be played on Saturday at Cupertino’s De Anza College, but the tip-off time had not been released at press time.
