CAC surges to victory

SIGNAL PEAK — The frustration on Central Arizona College men's basketball coach Tramaine Aaron's face was clear at halftime.

So much so that it took him five minutes into the break before he walked into the locker room to address the team.

It was a half that was pitiful for the Vaqueros  — shooting just 21 percent, hitting 7 of 34 shots from the field and hitting just 1 of 9 for 11 percent from three-point range.

A half where Central watched a 10-point lead evaporate after Just Hoops Prep's Aidan Romero single-handedly got his team back in the game. Romero checked in midway through the half and hit four shots from behind the arc to give Just Hoops Prep a 26-23 lead and a 26-24 halftime lead.

But in the second half, the frustration was gone as the Vaqueros finally shook off the cobwebs of a two-week break en route to a 70-46 win on Wednesday night.

"That's typically with myself and coach Rich McCray, that's our cool-down period," Aaron said of waiting to talk to the team at halftime. "We already know that they are going in (to the locker room) and they are using their colorful language to talk to each other. So we have to calm down and I feel that it would just be TNT meeting a hand grenade — it will be a super explosion. So we need to calm down and they need to get off whatever they need to get off their chest to each other and then we need to figure out the best way of telling them what we saw in the first half, so that we are all on the same page."

In the second half it was a different story as Central opened with a 22-2 run that was highlighted by Trace Dimeff's nine points. The Vaqueros shot 51 percent from the field in the second half, hitting 17 of 33 and 33 percent from behind the three-point line, hitting 4 of 12 shots. 

"Everybody in there got a little taste of what they needed because obviously they responded," Aaron said of what was said in the locker room at halftime.

Dimeff, who only made one shot attempt in the first half, was 3 for 3 in the second half while Karriem Simmons and JaQuan Johnson led Central (9-5) with 12 points each and Josh Rideau finished with 10 points.

"We were prepared for an ugly first half. I didn't think it was going to be that bad," Aaron said. 

Romero led Just Hoops Prep with 16 points while Dylan McCall scored 11 points.

Like the CAC women's team faced on Sunday, the Vaqueros had to battle a little rust from an 18-day break since an 89-85 loss to Glendale on Dec. 12.

"We have been practicing twice a day for the past three days," Aaron said. "This whole week we have been practicing with each other and getting readjusted with each other."