San Angelo Central rolls, Lake View struggles on Day 1 of McCutchen tourney
Dominic Ruiz, Branden Campbell and Raven Ortiz combined for 42 points Thursday, as the San Angelo Central Bobcats rolled to a 92-42 blowout against El Paso Ysleta in a first-round game at the Doug McCutchen Memorial Basketball Tournament at Babe Didrikson gym.
The Bobcats (6-1) will take on Fort Worth Boswell in a quarterfinal game at noon Friday. If Central wins that one, the Bobcats will advance to the semifinals at 7:30 p.m.
Boswell, coached by former Wall head coach Brian Blackburn, opened with a 51-43 decision against Canyon Randall.
Ruiz scored 18 points for Central, and Campbell and Ortiz chipped in 13 and 11, respectively.
"We started off fast and basically just didn't look back," Central head coach C.J. Villegas said. "We kind of told the guys, 'Kind of set the tone with what you want done with this thing.'
"Credit to our seniors and our guys for doing that. We scored fairly well. We threw the ball inside to Chace Fields and Kollin Allbright early. Dominic Ruiz came in off the bench and scored 18 points and shot the ball really well for us."
Looking ahead to Friday's quarterfinal game against Boswell, Villegas has a good idea what to expect from Blackburn's bunch.
"His teams, as long as I've known him, always play hard and they're always competitive," the Central coach said. "They have two big kids, too, who are super skilled. We're excited about that matchup to see our guys get after it a little bit with that matchup.
"I know they're going to be well coached and they're going play good team basketball. It should be fun."
On the north side of town Thursday, San Angelo TLCA rolled past Lake View 77-49 at Ben Norton gym.
Jaidden Villanueva (19), Ivan Oviedo (16) and Luis Casillas (15) scored in double digits for TLCA.
Lake View was led in scoring by Juan Perez (15) and Tony Cabrera (12).
The Eagles avenged a loss to the Chiefs (5-1) earlier in the season and handed them their first loss on the year.
"It was almost like a tale of two teams, the first time we played them and the second time we played them," Lake View head coach Courtney Bliskey said. "Both of us were different. They were better and I told the boys they would be better. We played them pretty good the first time, but coach (Kent) Sherrill had those guys ready to go.
"Their pressure bothered us and we didn't handle it very well, like we did the last time and like we're capable of. Foul trouble kind of bit us in the butt early and messed up our rotations. We just weren't in sync or in rhythm throughout the game and TLCA played very well. It's hard to beat the same team twice."
TLCA will meet Dallas Carter in the quarters at noon Friday.
Lake View's next game will be a consolation quarterfinal contest against El Paso Parkland at 9 a.m. Friday.
"Their size is going to give us some problems, but I think if we have our legs under us, we'll be OK and we can compete and have a chance," Bliskey said.
The tournament championship is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at Lake View's Ben Norton gym. The consolation championship will be at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Didkrikson.
A total of 16 teams are competing this time around, a year after the tourney was canceled due to COVID.
Charles Bryce is a journalist covering sports in West Texas. Send him a news tip at cbryce@gannett.com. Consider supporting West Texas journalism with a subscription to GoSanAngelo.com.
This article originally appeared on San Angelo Standard-Times: San Angelo Central rolls, Lake View struggles on Day 1 of McCutchen tourney
