Senior carries Coronado boys basketball to road win over Mojave — PHOTOS
Coronado senior Amare Oba missed his first six shots and was scoreless in the first quarter Thursday night.
He was next to unstoppable the rest of the night.
Oba finished with 31 points, 12 rebounds, three assists and two steals to power the third-ranked Cougars to a 69-63 road win over Mojave in boys basketball.
“Amare, he’s going to Missouri State. He’s a Division I college basketball player and we’re on him constantly about getting ready to go to the next level,” Coronado coach Jeff Kaufman said. “And to do that, you have to do things right. Sometimes he forgets things, and tonight, he put it together. He was mature, and he’s getting himself ready to go play college basketball and that translates immediately. You can see that in his play. He was very aggressive, he was very fluid in his shots. And he did a nice job.”
Oba said his confidence didn’t wane after the slow start. He finished 11-for-21 from the field.
“I think it’s just having the next-shot mentality,” Oba said. “Just keep shooting, because I know what I work on and I know I can make the next shot.”
Oba and the Cougars turned things around in the third quarter. The Rattlers led 29-27 at the half, but Oba scored 12 points in the third to help Coronado take control. The Cougars finished the period on an 8-0 run, capped by Oba’s second 3-pointer of the period with one second left, to take a 53-41 lead.
“We played more as a team,” Oba said of the third-quarter surge. “We limited our turnovers. I think we just ame together as a team.”
Kaufman said taking care of the ball better was a key to the surge, and said that the team’s defensive intensity translated to offensive production.”
“We just couldn’t make shots,” Kaufman said. “Second half, we just said, ‘We’re not doing this anymore.’ So we got much more aggressive on defense and we started making shots. And when we make shots, we’re hard to beat, because we’ve got good players at every position.”
The Cougars (6-6, 1-0 5A Southern League) took their biggest lead at 61-43 after a basket by Eric Hopkins with 5:25 to play. Mojave (13-4, 0-1) made a run after that, cutting the lead to single digits multiple times, but the six-point final margin was the closest the Rattlers were able to get.
Jonny Collins added 12 points and four rebounds, and DeVaughn Dorrough had nine points, 10 rebounds and four blocked shots for Coronado, which plays fourth-ranked Bishop Gorman on Saturday.
Phillip Gordon had 19 points off the bench to pace Mojave. He had eight points in the second quarter to help the Rattlers take the halftime advantage.
Jayden Luna added 14 points, five rebounds and six assists, and Ty’jir Broxie had 11 points and nine rebounds for Mojave.
