Drillers cruise past Rams, move to 7-0 in SEYL
| Wednesday, Feb 03 2010 10:26 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Feb 03 2010 10:26 PM
This time, Bakersfield High had no problem holding on to a boys basketball lead.
A superb second quarter and a workmanlike second half gave the Drillers a 90-68 victory at Garces on Wednesday and brought BHS one big step closer to a Southeast Yosemite League title.
"A win here is a good win, so I'm going to take it," Drillers' coach Greg Burt said.
Sophomore Tyrone Wallace scored 30 points to provide the headlines, and Bakersfield essentially put the game away in the second quarter, when they sliced and diced Garces with a full-court press. A 23-17 lead was 36-19 in a matter of minutes, and it was 52-31 at the half.
The most telling part of that sequence came when Isaiah Griggs stole two consecutive inbounds passes that led to easy layups.
"We had a spurt right there were it was just steal, layup, steal, layup," Burt said. "I'll tell you what, when we're doing that, it's a lot of fun."
The Drillers (14-6, 7-0 SEYL) are two games up on second-place Liberty (14-7, 5-2) and have four of their last five games at home, though the road game is at the Patriots.
But Burt didn't want to take any league-championship bait.
"I'm not going to say anything about that," Burt said. "We've got to keep playing hard; that's all we talk about in practice. We haven't talked about winning a league title, we just talk about getting better every game.
"And I think tonight was a good indication of that."
If Wallace plays like he did Wednesday, each game will come easily. The super soph scored in about every conceivable way, from 3-pointers to dunks to countless drives to the hole. Wallace also had eight rebounds and five steals.
"I don't want to say too many nice things about him, because he's only a sophomore," Burt said, "but he's a very, very good player and I expect very good things from him. He's just going to keep getting better."
Randall Jackson had 24 points and Chris Dixon 23 to go with eight rebounds for Garces (15-7, 5-3), but the Rams never pulled closer than 19 in the second half.
"BHS played a wonderful game tonight," said Garces coach Gino Lacava, whose team also had 25 turnovers and lost a six-game winning streak. "It would have taken something to beat them, with the remarkable shooting night they had."
Tim Billingsley contributed 15 points for Bakersfield, and Alfonso Jackson had 14.
