Nelson Has Estancia in Spotlight

Junior forward Sam Nelson thinks he knows why everyone overlooks Estancia every year when it comes to the county top 10 poll.

“Every year we [graduate] a couple of our big players and then no one thinks we will be any good,” he said.

After scoring a career-high 38 points and grabbing 12 rebounds Wednesday to lead the Eagles past host University, 68-60, the 6-foot-4 Nelson says it’s time that voters take notice. The unranked Eagles (5-0, 16-5) are two games ahead of the Trojans (3-2, 12-8), Aliso Niguel (3-2, 13-8) and Laguna Hills (3-2, 8-12) in the Pacific Coast League race.

University guard Eric Palmer, the county’s second-leading scorer, scored 24 points, making eight of 24 from the field. He missed his first six shots but cut Estancia’s lead to 66-58 in the waning moments of the game with his third three-pointer.

Ryan Simpson had eight rebounds for Estancia. Senior forward Nima Adloo scored 13 points for University.

University was missing two starters, junior guard Ali Omid (flu) and senior guard Ricky Parham (knee injury), but it is doubtful the Trojans could have stopped Nelson, who gave a powerful performance under the basket. He scored 16 points in the first quarter on seven of 11 shooting and added eight more before halftime. Estancia led, 37-28.

“It seemed like my shot was falling all night,” Nelson said. “We knew they liked to score a lot of points and we knew that if we made them play defense for 10 or 15 seconds that we could shoot it. We stayed in our motion offense and I got a lot of layups tonight off that.”

Estancia faltered briefly in the third quarter--which has been a problem all season. Nelson’s three-pointer made it, 41-28, with six minutes 40 seconds left in the quarter. But University went on a 13-4 run that included a pair of three-pointers by Palmer. When Adloo fed Rich Groendal for a basket with one minute 37 seconds left the Trojans trailed, 45-41.

But Nelson scored five of the next eight points and the Eagles never looked back.

“It seems like when we have a good first half, we tend to relax at the start of the third quarter and it comes up and bites us in the butt,” first-year Estancia Coach Rich Boyce said.