Culver City's Breakneck Pace Breaks Costa

After opening their season with a lopsided victory over Banning, Mira Costa High wound up on the wrong end of the scoreboard on Wednesday, losing 82-62 to Culver City in its second game of the Pacific Shores Tournament. 

Elliot Ozer poured in 25 points and collected seven rebounds to lead the Mustangs, but it wasn't enough to stop the break-neck pace of the Culver City attack. 

The Mustangs were unable to control the Centaurs' tandem of Aamahd Walker and Jaylen Pulliam-Carpenter. Walker's 25 points and Carpenter's deadly accuracy from 3-point range (4 for 4) helped push the Culver City lead to 12 points late in the second quarter. 

"We've had trouble early on in both of our games," Coach Henry Myar said.  "We've started slow and Culver City did a great job of exposing a lot of our weaknesses."

Ozer's 3-pointer from about 35 feet as time expired whittled the Culver City lead to 32-26 at halftime. And the Mustangs slowly clawed their way back, cutting the Centaurs' lead to 48-45 at the start of the fourth quarter. But an 11-2 run from Culver City, sparked by back-to-back three's from Pulliam-Carpenter, stretched the lead to 59-47.

Culver City took the momentum swing and ran with it, going up 65-48 in the middle of the fourth quarter, all but ending any chance for a Mira Costa comeback. 

Ozer was able to score consistently, but said the Culver City press was a factor in limiting scoring chances for his teammates. "They pressed the whole game and I don't think we were really ready for it," Ozer said. ''They forced us to rush our offense."

Myar said he wants to see his team dictate the tempo of the game and not the other way around. "We haven't developed the discipline yet to slow it down and play the game at our pace. Tonight we let them hurry us up and we took a lot of ill-advised shots," he said.

Culver City was able to shut down the inside presence of power forward Thomas Johnson who finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds, but had trouble finding scoring chances in the low post. 

"When it turns into fast pace Thomas tends to get lost in the shuffle," Ozer said.  ''In the future we're going to look to slow it down and get the ball inside more to him so he can be more of a factor."

Myar said he was pleased with the nine steals the Mustangs were able to record, but wants to see his team take better care of the ball. 

"Like every coach I want to see more assists than turnovers,'' Myar said.  "We basically turned the ball over all night long by taking so many quick shots." 

Mira Costa (1-1) will host Torrance in the third round of the tournament on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.