Eduardo Miranda
The Daily Independent
The Cerro Coso men's basketball team returned home after earning a three-point win over Copper Mountain on the road. The Coyotes, looking to continue their path to a playoff spot with a win, welcomed Desert to the Raymond McCue Pavilion. The Roadrunners entered the game having lost the last four conference games. After 40 minutes, the Coyotes held off a very scrappy Roadrunners squad for a 77-68 win and improved to 4-1 in Inland Empire Athletic Conference play to stay in a tie for second with San Bernardino Valley.
The Coyotes finished shooting 48.3% from the field, 54.5% from the three-point line, and 65.2% from the free-throw line. They grabbed 32 rebounds with 12 on the offensive glass, had 14 assists, six steals, and committed only nine turnovers.
Cerro Coso had two players score in double digits led by Trent Gordon with 31 points, seven rebounds, and two assists. Jami Hagger had 12 points and an assist. Anthony Edouard had a team high 12 rebounds, and Jon Leggett led the team with three steals and six assists.
Head coach Chris Dugan said on the win, "a tough grind-it-out win. Even though they have only two wins, they played a lot of teams close, and they are scrappy. They play hard and they do some things. I'm a little disappointed on how hard we played in the first half in spurts."
As the Coyotes coach said, Desert was a scrappy team that kept coming back when the home team was making a run and set to open up the score. Instead, the Roadrunners found a way to cut the lead and keep the game close.
In the first half, Tzahari Trevino scored a free throw to tie the game at 18-18 with 8:36 left. Cerro Coso scored the next four points on offensive rebounds and layups from Edouard and Gordon for a 22-18 lead. After the visitors scored, the Coyotes responded with Gordon dunking the ball on a pass from Trevino. The Roadrunners scored on the ensuing possession, and the home team scored the next four points on a layup from Morris and a hook shot in the post by Gordon, forcing Desert to call a timeout. Cerro Coso closed the first with a three from Hagger and an and-one by Gordon. The Coyotes led 34-28.
Cerro Coso had a strong five minutes to start the second half. The Coyotes jumped out to a 10-point lead at 43-33 behind an alley-oop from Leggett to Edouard, an offensive putback from Morris, a corner three from Hagger, and Edouard scoring both his free throws. But the Roadrunners continued to play and with 13:13 left in the game had cut the lead to four, 48-44. But the Coyotes didn't panic and continued to attack the boards and play their offense and defense, resulting in Gordon scoring a layup after grabbing an offensive board for an 11-point lead, 64-53.
But the lead did not last with the visitors going on a run to cut the Coyotes' lead to 70-61 after a dunk by Gordon and a timeout by Cerro Coso. But the Coyotes watched the Roadrunners score the next five points cutting their lead to 70-66.
But the Coyotes became even scrappier than the Roadrunners for the final two minutes. Trevino scored a free throw, then he found Gordon for a layup, and Gordon scored another layup on a pass from Leggett for a 75-68 lead with 26 seconds left. The Coyotes began to dominate the boards and force turnovers, and Leggett capped the win hitting both his free throws.
Dugan said on his team being scrappier than Desert, "there was a couple of big plays like offensive rebounds off of two missed free throws. Just some clutch plays. Trent hit some shoots at the end. It's nice because it's been a year of us finding ways to lose games, but now we have turned the corner starting with Reedley and the last couple of games. We needed to — Copper Mountain was a close game; we found a way to win."
The Coyotes continue Inland Empire Athletic Conference visiting Mt. San Jacinto on Saturday. They return home to host San Bernardino Valley on Wednesday with tipoff at 7 p.m. Dugan spoke on what he wants to see from his team going forward in conference play.
"Team sport winning is supposed to cure all, right? And sometimes it doesn't. It's a different brand of basketball that we are playing this year," he said. "I always thought we defended but we are much better defensively than we've ever been. We control tempo, we don't foul, we wall up, we rebound — it's not a complex defense. It's an old school type of basketball. It's like the old Big Ten and Big East. You want to be physical and grind it out. Our offense sometimes is not as pleasantly speaking in 2025, but you play to win the game. And we are winning some games now.
"Confidence. Confidence is king, and seeing a guy like Jermaine Tejada bank four threes in the first half is just big plays. Z made a jump shot. The confidence, you need it. Sometimes there's a monkey on our backs and you miss a free throw, but again, we have a big one on Saturday. It's a big week for us just because we are in a good spot to make playoff, but we have to finish in third place. San Jacinto is down this year but they are talented and can beat us, but we need to go on the road and beat them. If we do that we get to 5-1, and then we get our favorite, we get to play San Bernardino, which we are always fired up to play."