MISSION VIEJO — Mission Viejo’s boys basketball team snapped an 11-game Sea View League losing streak by beating Capistrano Valley 41-33 Wednesday at Capistrano Valley High.
The Diablos (9-11, 1-0) went 0-9 in league play last season in Keith Herbold’s first season as head coach and lost their last two league games in 2023.
“This is what we talked about,” Herbold said. “We said, ‘let’s prove that we are a good team and start our league with a win on the road against a good team.’ Any improvement from last year is big for us. We needed to prove it to ourselves that we could compete.”
Capistrano Valley is ranked No. 23 in the Register’s latest Top 25 and Mission Viejo is unranked.
Damian Navarro had a big game for Mission Viejo on both sides of the court. The junior had a game-high 23 points and had six steals on defense. Navarro made three of the team’s four successful 3-point shots.
“He is our team,” Herbold said of Navarro. “If he’s making threes, he’s unstoppable. I ask him to handle the ball, play every single minute and play hard defensively every single minute and he does it.”
Capo Valley (15-4, 0-1) had a five-game winning streak entering Wednesday and recently won the Desert Holiday Classic Tournament. The Cougars average 58 points per game and Mission Viejo’s defense held them to below 40 points for the first time this season.
“That team averages close to 60 per game and holding them under 35 took a good team effort all around,” Navarro said.
“Each individual player knew what they were going to do in our game plan and followed it,” Herbold said. “I don’t care if we make shots or miss shots. All I care about is if we follow our game plan and play hard and they did that tonight.”
Mission Viejo forced 14 turnovers, had 12 steals and had six blocked shots.
The Diablos held Capo Valley to 13 percent shooting from 3-point range and forced the Cougars to miss their last 14 3-point shots.
All-County football selection JD Hill was a big factor inside for Mission Viejo. Hill had a team-high 12 rebounds, blocked four shots and added eight points.
“One thing about JD, which probably comes from football, is that he can follow a game plan like no other,” Herbold said. “If you tell him what to do, he will do exactly what you want him to do. It’s a pleasure to coach him.”
Capo Valley trailed by as many as 11 points late in the third quarter and cut Mission Viejo’s lead to three points late in the game, but couldn’t convert scoring opportunities in the final minutes.
Gabe Williams scored all of his 10 points in the first half for the Cougars and Connor Fisher scored all 10 of his points in the second half.
Darius Turner, who was MVP of the Desert Holiday Classic, had 10 rebounds for Capo Valley and blocked two shots.
Jeremy Gonzales had two crucial steals in the final minutes of the game for Mission Viejo and had four points to help put the game away. Tyson Koedel had a pair of second half steals for the Diablos.
Mission Viejo will host Aliso Niguel in a league game Friday. The Diablos have lost seven of their last eight games against Aliso Niguel including four consecutive games dating back to 2023.
Capistrano Valley will play Sea View League newcomer Beckman on Friday at Beckman High.
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