{"id":345047,"date":"2025-12-13T09:21:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T09:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/345047\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T09:21:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T09:21:13","slug":"wilson-finishes-strong-beats-cabrillo-in-league-opener-the562-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/345047\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilson Finishes Strong, Beats Cabrillo in League Opener \u2013 The562.org"},"content":{"rendered":"

The562\u2019s coverage of Long Beach Wilson Athletics is sponsored by\u00a0Joel Bitonio, Class of 2009<\/a><\/p>\n

The562\u2019s coverage of Cabrillo Athletics is sponsored by\u00a0the Cohn Family<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Wilson Bruins went into Friday\u2019s Moore League opener at Cabrillo ready for a battle. The two programs have played a number of close games in recent seasons, and this was no exception.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for Wilson, they\u2019re battle-tested, having played 11 games coming into Friday\u2019s clash and playing their third game of the week on the Westside.<\/p>\n

After a slow start offensively, the Bruins were able to get off and running late in the third quarter, racing to a 54-48 comeback win over the Jags.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love it, man. It\u2019s just a gritty win,\u201d said Wilson head coach James Boykin. \u201cWe\u2019ve been in a lot of close games already this year, and each game that we\u2019re in, we keep trying to learn from that, growing, and developing with these guys \u2026 On the road against Cabrillo is always tough. They\u2019re well-coached, they\u2019re gritty, they\u2019re tough, their defense is good. I just didn\u2019t want to get stuck in a half-court game. So for these guys to battle back being down and take this game is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior Matthew Searles scored a team-high 16 points to lead the way for the Bruins, followed by 14 from sophomore Nehemiah Parris, who scored a dozen points in the third quarter to help flip the script for the visitors.<\/p>\n

Cabrillo led 14-7 after the opening quarter as senior guard MJ Reed got the Jags off to a strong start. He had a game-high 23 points, followed by 16 from sophomore Ului-He-Lotu Eteaki, who impressed in his Moore League varsity debut.<\/p>\n

Wilson was able to keep things close despite their offensive struggles early, trailing 23-19 at intermission.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that first half, it was so tough to even get a clean shot, and then when we did get a clean shot, we weren\u2019t hitting them,\u201d Boykin said. \u201cWe talked about it before the game, just keep pushing the ball. Cabrillo has really good basketball players, but I just wanted to keep pushing and keep wearing those guys down. And you saw in that fourth quarter they started giving up some transition buckets, started getting layups, started getting downhill a little bit. And I think a lot of that had to do with our pace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cabrillo stretched their advantage to double digits midway through the third quarter, going up 32-21, but Wilson\u2019s focus on pushing the ball in transition helped spark their comeback. Searles and Parris were key in pushing the pace and getting the Bruins back to within a bucket after three quarters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt halftime, we were talking about how we\u2019ve got to get the ball out in transition, because it\u2019s really hard for teams to guard us in transition,\u201d said Searles after the win. \u201cWe\u2019re a really fast-paced team, and once we get out in transition, we could win any game, really. So we\u2019re just not wanting to turn into a half-court game. We just really wanted to push the pace.\u201d<\/p>\n

A three-pointer by William Waldrop followed by a bucket from Searles quickly gave the Bruins a 42-39 lead in the fourth quarter and they wouldn\u2019t trail the rest of the night.<\/p>\n

Junior big man Andre Alvarez-Smith finished off a nice move in the paint, scoring through contact to give Wilson a 50-46 lead. On the ensuing free-throw attempt, Brooklyn Vega secured an offensive rebound and putback to give Wilson a six point lead and essentially secure the win.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were talking about it yesterday, we haven\u2019t beaten Cabrillo at their house in two years,\u201d Searles recalled. \u201cAnd we knew this group was capable of doing it, so I feel like this really gives us a boost of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson (9-3) will be back in action on Tuesday when they travel to play Compton, while Cabrillo (2-5) will be at Lakewood on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The562\u2019s coverage of Long Beach Wilson Athletics is sponsored by\u00a0Joel Bitonio, Class of 2009 The562\u2019s coverage of Cabrillo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-345047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}