The “B Boys” showed off their “A game” on Thursday night, leading SBCC to an 80-70 men’s basketball win over Cypress in the opening round of the SBCC Classic.
Scott Burrows scored 19 points and Eric Becker added 16 to guide the Vaqueros (2-8) to victory in their home debut. Burrows and Becker are sophomores from Santa Ynez High.
Burrows, a 6-4 guard, hit 8-18 from the field and grabbed five rebounds while Becker, a 6-5 forward, nailed 7-8 shots and had a team-high six boards. The Vaqueros won the rebound battle 32-26, despite giving up 15 offensive rebounds.
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“This is my first game back after missing the last two weeks,” said Burrows. “We ran the offense really well and my teammates were finding me. When we run the offense collectively like that, anyone can go off on any given night.”
In other games, Hancock fell behind 16-0, then rallied to wallop Victor Valley 101-75; L.A. Valley topped Oxnard 75-60 and Pasadena beat West L.A. 60-53.
SBCC will battle county rival Hancock in Friday’s first semifinal at 7 p.m. L.A. Valley will meet the Pasadena-West L.A. winner at 9 p.m. In the consolation semifinals, West L.A. squares off with Oxnard at 3 p.m. and Victor Valley meets Cypress at 5 p.m.
Michael Hansen and J.P. Dodson each scored nine for the Vaqueros and Alex DiManno had five assists. Dodson hit 5-6 free throws in the final 37 seconds to secure the victory.
“This was our most complete game,” said Becker. “We made the extra passes and shot the ball well.”
Santa Barbara held the Chargers (3-5) to 27.8 percent shooting in the second half and outshot them 51 to 33 percent for the game. Malcolm Whittington led Cypress with 15 of his 17 points coming in the first half.
The Vaqueros jumped ahead 19-11 and led 43-36 at intermission.
SBCC extended the margin to 14 points (58-44) on long triple by DiManno with 13:48 to play. Cypress shaved the deficit to 67-61 with 4:54 to go before Burrows buried a 3-pointer from the right corner on an assist from Dodson.
“We took a timeout and we knew we needed a good shot because they had gone on a little run,” said Burrows.
The Vaqueros shot over 50 percent for the first time this season.
“Offensively, we did a great job of executing and sharing the ball,” said coach Morris Hodges. “Our defense was stellar. We created a lot of turnovers and we got some runout opportunities.
“This was our best game of the year. We played two good halves of basketball. We’ve been working hard in practice and it was good to see the guys get rewarded for their improvement during the week.”
