Breakers survive in opener

Bret Fleming called Wednesday night’s CIF opener a “crazy game.”

The most important thing is that his Breakers survived to play another day.

Dylan Roley scored 25 points to guide the Breakers past visiting El Segundo, 56-43, in the opening round of the Division IVA playoffs at Dugger Gym. The win moves Laguna into a second-round game at 7:30 tonight in Pasadena where the Breakers will play La Salle.

Laguna, the No. 4-seed in the tournament, controlled much of the action Wednesday against El Segundo, an at-large team from the Pioneer League. The Breakers took a 13-8 first quarter lead and extended the advantage over the Eagles to 25-14 at the half.

“It was a real physical game from the get-go,” Fleming said. “A lot of fouls were called both ways, but I thought we played well enough to win.

“We defended pretty well, but I thought we took a step back in the second half but recovered to pull away and take control.”

Roley, who Fleming said is nearly 100% recovered from a pair of sprained wrists that had hampered the 6-foot-4 senior guard offensively the past few weeks, was back in the groove. He hit pull-up jumpers, hit from three-point range and was able to get to the foul line.

“Dylan played real well,” Fleming said. “He’s almost completely healthy and it’s nice to see him get back to full-strength.”

John Palfreyman and Ryan Lawler each scored seven points, Adam Selevan and Christian Kesler each had six points and Cody Duplisea scored five points to round out the Laguna scoring.

“Adam was real sick but still was able to gut-out some minutes and he hit a big three-pointer for us,” Fleming said. “John Palfreyman had a solid game both offensively and defensively and Christian Kesler did a terrific job on defense and shut down their big 6-10 kid.”

The playoff win upped Laguna’s record to 21-5. El Segundo finished its season at 10-17.

Tonight’s opponent, La Salle, is the No. 3 team from the Camino Real League. The Lancers went on the road Wednesday for their first-round game and routed Bishop Union, 79-52. Fleming said he was able to see La Salle play earlier in the season and expects a tough match-up.

“They are a pretty solid team that does really well at home,” he said. “It should be a good game.”

MIKE SCIACCA covers sports. He can be reached at (714) 966-4611 or by e-mail at [email protected].