Mira Costa’s late-season swoon continued Tuesday night as the boys basketball team fell to Palos Verdes Peninsula 67-55 a month after pulling out an overtime victory at Peninsula.
The second time around the Bay League is proving tougher for the Mustangs because the scouting report is now set in stone: stop their two stars – 5-foot-9 slick point guard Dylan Kim and 6-foot-4 jumping-jack forward Quenton Jackson — from getting off and you will probably stop Mira Costa from winning.
“Going into the game our goal was to control Kim and Jackson,” Peninsula Coach Jim Quick said moments after the game.
Well, one out of two isn’t bad. Jackson finished with a very quiet nine points, most of them coming after the game had already been decided. Kim, however, was the game’s high scorer with 22 points and six steals. He outscored Peninsula’s top gun, 6-foot-4 forward Mickey Babek, who finished with 16 points, 10 rebounds and six assists.
But Babek had more help: 6-foot-2 guard/forward Kurt Milch also had 16 points, and 6-foot-6 center Jason Burr chipped in with 14 points and 10 rebounds as Peninsula controlled the boards for most of the game.
The first quarter was close and competitive as the two long-time rivals fought to an 11-11 standoff with a couple of minutes left. But from there Babek tipped in a follow-up shot, Milch drilled a corner 3 and Babek showed off a nice spin move that earned him an easy layup and suddenly Peninsula had grabbed a substantial lead at 18-11.
The Panther’s lead grew to 29-20 when Babek hit an unintentional bank-shot trifecta, and when he followed that with a corner 3 the lead stood at 10, 32-22.
From there Kim put on a one-man show to lead Costa on a 9-0 run that whittled the lead down to 32-31 at the half. First he hit two free throws, then he made a clean steal and raced coast-to-coast for the layup to make it 32-26. Kim then broke out of a scrum under the Peninsula boards and beat everybody down court to scoop in another dipsy-doo layup, hit a foul shot, and finished his one-man comeback with yet another clean steal and easy finish to send the Mustangs into the locker room on an emotional high, just one point down with high hopes for the second half.
Jackson opened the second half with a straight-on 3, and when 6-foot-2 banger supreme Adam Griese used a clever spin move to bank in a short shot the Mustangs actually had a lead at 36-34.
But instead of building on their momentum, Costa let Babek get free for a 15-foot elbow jumper, followed by two free throws, a stick-back and yet another foul shot that enabled the Panthers to re-establish their control of the game from that point forward.
Afterwards a frustrated Mustang Coach Jeff Amaral admitted the obvious after this surprising loss and the blowout loss to Redondo a week ago: “We’re currently not playing well at home. We only shot 5 out of 22 on three-pointers and we had 16 turnovers. That won’t get it done.”
The loss dropped Mira Costa to 4-3 and third place in the Bay League while Peninsula improved to 3-4 in the league. Costa has a huge game Friday night when it will host Inglewood, which will be looking to avenge Costa’s earlier 60-55 upset win at Inglewood.
“That road win at Inglewood, and the road win at Peninsula were probably our two best wins of the season,” Amaral said.
Peninsula got its revenge Tuesday night. Will Inglewood do the same?
Stay tuned.
Contact: paulteetor@verizon.net
Follow: @paulteetor
