Irvine boys basketball overpowers Laguna Hills behind Cooper Stearns’ 20-20 effort ...Middle East

IRVINE — The Irvine boys basketball team continued its torrid start to the season by picking up another victory on Friday night, 60-42 over Laguna Hills at Irvine High.

Senior forward Cooper Stearns led the Vaqueros (11-2) with a game-high 24 points and 20 rebounds.

“He’s just solid, every game,” Irvine coach Harry Meussner said of Stearns. “The biggest thing that I’m most proud of Cooper for is that he keeps his composure really well. As a senior, he demands a lot of attention, he gets a lot of physical play against him. He draws double teams, triple teams, and he keeps his composure and that’s really big for our team.”

Meussner, who is in his fourth season at the helm for Irvine, acknowledged that he has been pleasantly surprised by his squad’s strong start.

“This is year four for me and we’ve been on a steady climb,” he said, “but I’d be lying if I told you I thought we’d be 11-2 this year. … So I’m just really proud of these guys.”

“It’s been four years of growth for our program and we continue to compete against really good opponents,” he continued. “Just trying to take it one day at a time, that’s our approach.”

Stearns, who is also a standout golfer who has signed with Stanford, dominated the first half by scoring 19 of his 24 points and was a menace on the offensive glass.

When the help came to get that ball out of Stearns’ hands, he alertly found his open teammates, like his younger brother Holden, who knocked down a couple of corner 3-pointers.

“Whether it’s Holden or Jalen (Yim) or Taewon (Kim) or Ali (Dal) or Jackson (Shaffer), Cooper has trust in his teammates,” Meussner said, “and they have trust in him. … That’s what’s special about this group, they love each other, they trust each other, they’re in this with a common goal.”

Dal had nine points, the younger Stearns and Kim each added eight points while Yim had seven points off the bench and Shaffer contributed on defense with three steals.

The Hawks (9-6) were led by freshman guard Cyrus Yusuf, who scored a team-high 15 points, while junior Jackson Burnham had 12 points. Sophomore big man Myles Mittelsteadt chipped in with eight points.

Laguna Hills coach Sean Sargeant saw the game as a teaching moment for his youthful team.

“Kudos to Irvine, their experience versus our inexperience was a little bit tough for us tonight,” Sargeant said. “Having two freshmen on the court starting for us and rotating in a lot of sophomores. They’re not excuses, we gotta learn how to handle those things.”

“We lost the second half by three points,” he continued. “We can’t wait the whole first half to wake up and start competing and match their physicality. We matched it in the second half and it was a three-point game, so it’s just one of those learning lessons. You can’t start off slow, we’re going to learn from it and keep moving forward.”

Meussner was able to relate to his counterpart since he found himself in the same predicament a few years ago.

“First of all, credit to Laguna Hills, because new coach, new school, I know how that first year goes and he (Sargeant) has them competing really hard,” Meussner said. “They have some solid young players that are playing great.”

Irvine will move on to the North-South Challenge and take on Tesoro on Saturday, Dec. 21, while Laguna Hills will face Edison in the El Toro Tournament on Thursday, Dec.26.

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