Torres sneaks on Eagles

COSTA MESA — The game plan for Estancia High from the start, key on the big guy.

But the tallest guy for Fullerton never stepped on the floor.

In street clothes is how 6-foot-7 senior center Dwayne Fells showed up to the Estancia Coast Classic. Out due to breaking team and school rules, Coach Bill Czech said he expected the rest of his Indians to contribute to make up for Fells’ absence.

A surprise to Estancia Coach Agustin Heredia, who designed a strategy to slow down Fells. Never did the first-year coach anticipate the smallest guy on the court to put away the Eagles early.

But 5-6 senior Stephan Torres did in the opening round game for both teams.

The guard hit three of his five three-pointers in the first quarter, allowing visiting Fullerton to coast to a 62-45 pool-play victory Wednesday night.

As the rest of the starters headed for the bench with plenty of time on the clock in the second half, Torres left, too. All smiles after finishing with a season-high 21 points.

When Torres didn’t bury Estancia with three-pointers, he attacked the basket without the ball. This time not to break free from screens, but for backdoor layups.

“We saw tape on him. What we saw he didn’t shoot it well,” Heredia said. “But he shot with confidence every time, so we knew he was a shooter.”

Torres displayed how well by shooting lights out. It’s the kind of performance Fullerton will continue to need from Torres as Czech said Fells served the second game of an eight-game suspension.

From the start, Torres made sure the Indians (8-4) kept rolling without Fells. He hit his first three three-pointers as Fullerton took control with a 26-8 lead after the first quarter.

“[This] makes us play a lot stronger and a lot more together without relying on him all the time,” said Torres of Fells, who’s the younger brother of UC Irvine center Darren Fells. “I’m just playing my role still, shooting the three-ball and doing whatever I can for the team.”

Even when Torres struggled, as he was part of a group starting the second quarter missing its first seven shots, the Eagles (5-7) never managed to cut the deficit to single digits.

With Fells and his 19.1 points per game out, Fullerton found other ways to go ahead, 37-20, at halftime and into today’s game against Windermere Secondary of Vancouver, British Columbia as the favorite to win the eight-team tournament.

Fullerton shot a dismal 31.2% percent in the second quarter, but it took advantage of the Eagles’ small size, beating them to rebounds on the offensive end. At the end, the Indians grabbed 21 offensive rebounds. The second-chance opportunities hurt Estancia and magnified one of its major weaknesses.

“I think our inexperience showed,” said Heredia, who only has one returning starter from a year ago in Troy McClanahan, combined with one senior only playing Wednesday made for a troublesome night. “Fullerton’s kind of a senior-loaded team. We helped them out by [committing 20] turnovers.

“With a good team like that we can’t be helping [it] out. We got off to a bad start again.”

At least this beginning is nothing like the one from last season, where things never got going and ended with Estancia at 2-24. With one more victory the Eagles will have tripled their win total.

In their 13th game of the season, the Eagles will have a shot to do it when they face Aliso Niguel tonight at 7:30 in pool-play action.

“We can’t be satisfied,” said Heredia, adding that having the game plan altered at the last minute with Fells out didn’t matter. “I always tell the guys, ‘It doesn’t matter what [the opponent is] doing, if we take care of what we need to do then we could at least compete with anybody.’”

Estancia Coast Classic

Pool play

Fullerton 62, Estancia 45

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Ful. – Torres 21, Chang 12, Arrellano 9, Turowski 7, Mancini 6, Claes 4, Bell 3.

3-pt. goals – Torres 5.

Fouled out – None.

Technicals – None.

Est. – Thomas 13, McClanahan 12, Fryslie 6, Neumann 6, Antonio 5, Knapp 2, Jones 1.

3-pt. goals – Thomas 3, McClanahan 2, Antonio 1, Fryslie 1.

Fouled out – None.

Technicals – None.

DAVID CARRILLO PEÑALOZA may be reached at (714) 966-4612 or at [email protected].