Cats win two at Grossmont Tourney

The Saddleback men's basketball team finished off the Grossmont College Tournament with a pair of wins over the weekend in El Cajon.  The last was a 15-point win against De Anza to finish 2-1 in the tournament.

Charlie Stallings led the Bobcat attack against De Anza, shooting a sizzling 11-of-13 from the field in finishing with a game-high 24 points.  Stallings also led all players with nine rebounds as Saddleback outrebounded De Anza 42-31 for the game.

Stallings opened the scoring for Saddleback with a three-pointer to tie the score at 3-3 with 18:19 left in the opening half.  It was the last time De Anza would lead as the Bobcats went on a 19-4 run and never looked back.  Saddleback held a 46-36 lead at the break after making 7-of-16 shots from beyond the arc in the opening 20 minutes.

The lead remained between 8-12 for the opening eight minutes of the second half when De Anza finally cut the lead to six.  The Mountain Lions would eventually whittle the lead down to two a handful of times but could never get even on the scoreboard.

Saddleback made a layup with 4:32 remaining to extend the lead to 74-70 and Stallings followed with a pair of layups as the lead grew to 78-70 with just over three minutes remaining.  The Bobcats dominated from that point forward, outscoring De Anza 16-3 over the final 4:32. Stallings delivered the dagger when he drilled a three-pointer with 1:32 remaining to push the lead back to 13 points (86-73).

Joining Stallings in double-digit scoring was Mark Reichner (16) and Malachi Hiers (14). Sevier also had a season-high eight assists in the game.  

Saddleback was solid at the free throw line as a team, making 16-of-20 for the game. 

Saddleback is now 6-4 overall for the season.  The Bobcats will play next in the Fullerton Classic, starting on Friday.  Saddleback will open the tournament against West Los Angeles College on Friday at 4:00 PM.