Bouncing back from their first conference defeat against Copper Mountain, sophomore Lance Coleman II led the Hornets to a 93-53 blowout over Orange Coast College. Coleman II recorded a career-high performance of 40 points, along with 13 rebounds.
“I just wanted to take what the defense was giving to me and kept an aggressive mindset while keeping my teammates involved,” Coleman II stated on his historic night.
The Hornet’s first possession of the game displayed team chemistry at its finest. They moved the ball effortlessly using one-touch tip passes to find Coleman II for an easy layup to start the game.
Fullerton immediately proved to be the better shooting team by letting it rain from downtown and attacking the paint to create multiple scoring opportunities. In addition to shooting the ball well, the Hornets were able to create second-chance points off their misses by clearing the boards on offense and using their size advantage to box out the smaller defenders.
Hornet sophomore guard Rodrick McCobb’s steal from half court and bang out dunk in the middle of the first half had the crowd jumping off their seats. This was the epiphany of the Hornet’s defense pressing full court and creating countless turnovers by pressuring the undersized Pirates who couldn’t find any space to score.
From then on, the Hornets were able to continuously move the ball effectively and find their open shooters in the corner for a 3-point shot. This was a result of rolling off effective pick and roll screens on top of the key.
The Hornets were able to pick their poison on what shots to exploit. With either feeding the ball to the player rolling off the screen or to an open shooter when the help defense tried to recover the blown coverage.
The Pirates, however, were still able to keep their deficit to 10 points at the end of the first half by scoring inside the paint and taking advantage of the little mistakes the Hornets made.
When the second half started, the Hornets came out by tightening their defense and limiting their mistakes. As a result, the Hornets were able to score more than they did in the first half and hold Orange Coast to only 20 points compared to the 33 points given in the first.
Coleman II continued his historic onslaught on Orange Coast and kept shooting from long distance in the second half. He would finish the night shooting 8 for 12 from the 3-point line, this helped Coleman II tie the Hornet’s 9th all-time single game record for scored points in a game.
“I think we did a good job being aggressive & sharing the ball on offense both halves but defensively we need to start the game with the same intensity that we end it with. Our team has always stuck together the whole year despite any adversity,” Coleman II said.
“With Coach Perry not being there, we (the leaders) knew that we would have to step up in his absence & get ourselves back on track together as a unit,” Coleman II added.
The Hornets (21-2) (6-1) next home game is on Wednesday, Feb. 6 at 5 p.m. as they face conference opponent Irvine Valley.