EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- The South Bay Lakers (3-4) won consecutive games for the first time this season after thumping the Rip City Remix (1-6) 123-102 Wednesday night at UCLA Health Training Center.
South Bay was playing short-handed once again, with just eight players available Wednesday night. Those eight certainly showed up: all but one Laker had double digit point totals in the game.
South Bay got off to a scorching start, going perfect from three for the first four shots of the game to jump ahead 12-2.
Rip City seemed to have no answer for the South Bay offense. Remix head coach Sergi Oliva had already burned two of the team’s timeouts halfway through the first quarter after falling behind the Lakers 18-4, hoping to halt a South Bay swing that just would not stop.
Despite this, the Lakers kept on going. Grayson Murphy found a wide-open Vincent Valerio-Bodon with a cross-court pass that Bodon threw down for a dunk to stretch the Laker lead 25-11.
DaJuan Gordon and Jhonathan Dunn combined for over half the Laker points in a first quarter South Bay closed out 34-20.
Rip City could not find their shots in the second. Through three and half minutes they failed to make a single field goal. Alex Reese ended the second quarter drought with a layup for the Remix’s first points of the second quarter, still trailing South Bay 40-22.
The Lakers, on the other hand, continued to surge ahead with an onslaught of dunks and three point jumpers. They shot 44.7% from three in the game.
South Bay led by as much as 19 points over Rip City in a first half marked by an avalanche of scoring while Rip City seemed trapped in an offensive desert. South Bay closed out the half up 62-47 over Rip City.
Four of the five Laker starters already hit double-digit point totals in a tremendous first half, with the straggler, Valerio-Bodon, close behind with eight points and six rebounds.
As the scorecard indicated, Rip City was outplayed by South Bay in just about every statistic in the book. The only advantage the Remix seemed to have was at the free throw line, where they finished the night 15-17, almost making more free throws than South Bay had attempts.
Despite the gap, Rip City continued to fight in the third.
Rip City’s Bryce McGowens took control of what offense Rip City did have, leading his team in both points and assists in their effort to catch up to South Bay. The Remix cut the Laker lead down 74-65 with just under five minutes left in the third, the first time the teams had been within single digits of each other since the first quarter.
However, Rip City seemed to lose the rhythm they had only just begun to gain, making just one more field goal in the last four minutes of the quarter.
The Lakers didn’t take their dwindling lead lightly, embarking on a 10-2 scoring run to boost their lead back to a resounding 17 points and finish the quarter still up 84-67.
The fourth was a return to form for the Lakers. Their lead ballooned to a massive 109-84 with six minutes left to play, helped by three straight three pointers by Gordon, assisted by Kylor Kelley each time.
Gordon was the unquestionable spark plug of a dominant South Bay offense. He finished the night with a season high 34 points.
Murphy was one assist shy of a triple-double and finished the night with a 11-9-21 line, leading the team in rebounds while being second in points.
South Bay dominance was all the eye could see in the fourth quarter, where both teams reached their highest quarterly point total of the night. South Bay never let Rip City get as close as they did in the third and closed out the game on top by a massive 123-102 victory, the most South Bay has scored in a game all season.
The Lakers will travel to Santa Cruz next to face off against the Santa Cruz Warriors Saturday, Nov. 30 at 7 pm.