Coming off a lopsided loss to perennial powerhouse Mater Dei, the Dos Pueblos High boys’ basketball team bounced back with a 76-28 victory over Nipomo on Tuesday night at Sovine Gymnasium.
The Chargers shared the ball, hustled on defense and boasted a balanced scoring attack to pull away from the visiting Titans.
“We really wanted to press a lot tonight and I felt that we did a good job of forcing our sideline rotations and basically what that means is we sped them up,” said Dos Pueblos coach Joe Zamora. “We rushed them into some quick shots. We rushed them into some bad turnovers.”
Christian Perez led all scorers with 14 points and did the majority of his damage running the floor and putting back offensive rebounds, despite being a smaller guard. Perez tore his ACL last year and is excited to be a key contributor in his senior season.
“I’m really good at communicating and making sure everybody is in their spots,” Perez said. “I’m just really blessed that I went through a really good rehabilitation program that got me confident enough to be out here back for my senior season.”
Dos Pueblos jumped out to an early lead behind a hot start from senior guard Justin Stock, who scored all seven of his points in the opening period. A driving layup by Stock gave the Chargers a 9-4 lead with 3:03 remaining in the first quarter and was a part of a 12-2 run to close the period.
Senior Matthew Zamora found sophomore Coulter Jay for an open three-pointer that increased the Dos Pueblos lead to 22-6 with 7:11 remaining in the second quarter. Zamora finished with 13 points and did a nice job spreading the ball around on offense.
The Chargers built their lead to 44-18 at halftime after an offensive rebound and basket inside by Peter Lee.
The Dos Pueblos lead ballooned in the third quarter as Zamora broke away for back-to-back fastbreak layups to put the Chargers ahead 61-25 at the end of the third quarter. Much of the fourth quartet featured a running clock.
Standout senior forward Micah Goss was held out of the game due to injury. He is expected to play on Friday.
With the victory, Dos Pueblos improves to 2-1 on the season, but will face a tough challenge on Friday at home against a solid Capistrano Valley program out of Orange County. The visiting Cougars are 4-1 thus far this season. Tip off is at 7 p.m.