Responding in a big way to its first loss of the season on Thursday, the varsity boys’ basketball team salvaged a 3rd place finish in its first at the Mira Costa Pacific Shores Tournament with an impressive 65-43 win over Gardena (3-2 overall, 0-0 in Marine League).

Point guard Alex Copeland ’15 led the way again for the Wolverines, scoring 23 points to give himself 22.8 PPG on the year, second in the Mission League behind only Loyola’s Max Hazzard ’15. Copeland added four steals in Saturday’s game, and was named to the all-tournament first team for his efforts during the week. Ali Iken ’17 had another solid night, adding 14 points on 5-for-1o shooting (3-for-6 from three point range) to put himself at 16 PPG for the season, and classmate Aaron Glazer ’17 rebounded from a 1-for-8 shooting performance on Thursday by putting up a seasonal and career-best 10 points on 4-for-5 shooting (2-for-3 from deep). Center Noah Gains ’15 had a balanced game as well, scoring only four points on 2-for-4 shooting but contributing all around with five rebounds, three assists, three steals, and a block.

Gardena was in the game for a while, down only 31-24 at the half and 47-35 after three quarters, but the Wolverines closed out with a strong 18-8 fourth quarter to put the game out of reach. The Wolverines’ fourth quarter performance was far improved from that of Thursday’s game, when they allowed 28 points in the final eight minutes in a loss to Mira Costa.

With the Pacific Shores tournament completed, the Wolverines (3-1 overall, 0-0 in Mission League) get a few days off before playing again. The squad will next compete in the University (Los Angeles) High School Jim Nakabara Classic, in which the team finished in second place to Windward a season ago. Their first pool play game will be against local rival North Hollywood (2-0 overall, 0-0 in East Valley League) on Dec. 10 at 5:30 P.M.