Maka Ellis, Sierra Vista have post-holiday breakout

Spring Valley’s boys basketball team was assessed a technical foul midway through the third quarter Wednesday for having six players on the court.

The extra man might have been the only way to cool off hot-shooting Sierra Vista.

Maka Ellis finished with 30 points and 17 rebounds, and the host Mountain Lions exploded for 36 points in the third quarter on the way to an 80-47 romp over Spring Valley.

“You never know what you’re going to get coming off a Christmas break,” Sierra Vista coach Keith Ulrich said. “We didn’t have the best practice (Tuesday), but they were definitely ready to play, especially in that third quarter. Definitely our best quarter of the season, all around.”

Sierra Vista (7-8, 3-1 Southwest League) made all five 3-point attempts in the third quarter and was 14-for-22 overall from behind the 3-point line.

Zekarias Kassaye made three 3s and had 10 points, and Chris McCoy added nine points and 11 rebounds for the Mountain Lions, who had five of their nine players score eight points or more.

“Where we struggled with our tournament games is we haven’t been able to knock down the open 3 when the teams are rotating to Maka, and we’re reversing the ball and have open shooters,” Ulrich said. “Today we were able to do that. That was a huge key to the game is our guys off Maka were able to knock down open shots, especially from the 3-point line.”

Ellis had 18 points in the first half, and Sierra Vista made seven 3-pointers to take a 35-23 halftime lead.

The Mountain Lions opened the second half on a 10-1 spurt and then used a 22-5 run that included 3-pointers by Kassaye (two), Mathias Aaiva and Ellis to go ahead 67-32 with 1:27 left in the third.

Ryan Frazier had 16 points and eight rebounds for the Grizzlies (5-10, 1-2), who were outscored 36-11 in the third.

“We wanted to get (the lead) to 20 at halftime, and we let them cut it to 12, so we really harped on, ‘Let’s come out and win these first four minutes,’” Ulrich said. “Not only did we hit open shots, but we defended consistently, we rebounded consistently and we up-tempoed them and really played at our pace.”

Contact reporter David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on Twitter.