Christopher did plenty offensively to beat Monte Vista Christian.
The Cougars put up 63 points, had three players in double figures and never scored fewer than 10 in any of the four quarters.
The problem was, once the Mustangs got rolling and once they exposed the Cougars’ weakness, there was no stopping them.
MVC handed Christopher its fourth straight loss in a high-flying 71-63 game Wednesday night.
Head Coach Dan Mooney said he wasn’t surprised by the result. The former MVC head coach had many of the older players as sophomores and helped lay the foundation of the team that is now 10-1 overall this season.
“Nothing they surprised me, I was just trying to contain them,” Mooney said. “And I did that for a half.”
Mooney said despite the Mustangs putting up 24 in the second quarter, he was overall pleased with his team’s effort.
It wasn’t until the third quarter that Mooney started shaking his head.
“Come the second half, we changed our game level,” Mooney said. “I told them, guys we have to keep banging inside, banging them inside. We had them in foul trouble with 10 team fouls way early in the first half. I wanted to keep that going in the second half, but they started doing jump stuff, started throwing the ball away and that’s the result.”
Both teams flew the whole night, with bodies landing in the seats, on the floor and into each other.
Christopher finally got its physical play to work late in the fourth quarter, trailing by 16 early on.
But a 3-pointer from Alec Cordova and one from Noah Alvarez helped pushed the deficit to below 10 points.
Then with a minute to play, Christopher forced a pair of turnovers to cut the MVC lead down to seven, but the Cougars simply ran out of time.
With 43 seconds left, CHS scored on a pair of free throws from Thomas Ellis to push to within 68-61.
MVC went down the court, got fouled but made just one of two free throws.
By then, however, the clock wasn’t Christopher’s friend and despite a late bucket, it wasn’t enough.
Again, the Cougars played good enough to win at times—taking a 13-9 lead after the first quarter, nearly erasing a 13-point deficit in the fourth quarter—but once MVC got rolling, Christopher couldn’t halt the advance.
The Mustangs put up 47 points between the second and third quarters and almost scored more points in three quarters than Christopher did in four.
MVC put up 62 of its 71 points after the first quarter.
And much of the damage came in the third.
The Mustangs opened the second half on a 16-6 scoring run to go up 49-36 with two minutes to play in the quarter.
The third was also marked by Christopher’s nine turnovers, which led to MVC getting out in space and taking easy baskets.
Mooney said he has good players to take the point between a senior and junior guard, but he said neither of them have enough experience yet to contain a team like MVC and he said that’s when the turnovers began to happen.
“They exposed the fact that I have a young back court,” Mooney said. “I have a senior with not enough experience. I have to remedy that. I got to think of what to do differently.”
He MVC began attacking high in the half court and it forced the ball handlers into decisions that eventually led to turnovers. And once those turnovers happened, MVC was off to the races.
It also allowed Michael Green—one of MVC’s top scorers—to finally get going.
Green had one point in the first half, but broke out for nine points in the third quarter and finished with 12 for the game.
Meanwhile, Ryan De Los Santos provided a spark for the Mustangs with his 16 points to lead MVC in scoring. He had nine in the first half off a trio of 3-pointers.
Lucas Scmidt finished with a double-double with 11 points and 10 boards.
MVC also used its depth to run past Christopher, who played a seven-man rotation against the Mustangs’ 10.
The Cougars were led by Xander Bowers and Cordova, who each had 18 points.
Cordova had four 3-pointers on the night to help keep things close, especially in the second quarter when he drained two from behind the arc and two more shots from the free throw line.
Chris Burnett followed with 12 points.
Mooney said he knows the Gabilan Division is a tough league, but he believes his boys can make the adjustment going forward. He said he saw that come together for a half and now it’s just a matter of getting practice in to get two halves of high-level play.
Christopher will have a week to prepare for Hollister, when the Cougars hit the road on Jan. 13 to open a two-game road stretch that will include a trip to Salinas.
