Atwater's Buhach Colony overwhelms Turlock

TURLOCK -- Doug Cornfoot tried anything he could think of. The Turlock High boys basketball coach rotated players in and out trying to matchup against Buhach Colony on Wednesday night.

He burned timeouts to try and squelch momentum. None of it seemed to matter against Joe Marquez.

Turlock had no answer for Marquez on its home court as he scored 10 of his game-high 28 points and helped lead the Thunder to a 69-60 victory on Wednesday night.

The loss, coupled with Golden Valley's victory over Atwater, all but eliminates the Bulldogs' Central California Conference title hopes. Turlock, BC and Atwater now all sit three games back of the Cougars with three games to play.

Knowing that their title hopes were gone after losing to Atwater last week, Marquez said the Thunder are just trying to have fun in the second half of conference play.

"Coach has faith in us to see what the defense is doing and call the offense," Marquez said. "Everybody is playing hard and tonight it just happened that a few more shots fell for me.

"We were having success with me dribble driving inside, and so we stuck with it."

Buhach Colony (4-3 CCC, 16-8) turned the game around with its defensive effort in the second quarter.

The Thunder press seemed passive in the opening quarter and the Bulldogs (4-3 CCC, 14-10) had little trouble picking it apart.

Turlock shot 9-of-19 in the first quarter, with most of its points coming on easy shots in the paint as it took a 20-15 lead.

Things didn't come nearly as easy in the second quarter as BC upped its intensity and pressure. Turlock struggled to execute its offense, turning the ball over seven times.

Buhach took advantage, opening the second quarter with a 10-2 run and taking a 34-27 lead into intermission.

"I thought overall our defensive performance was really good," BC coach John Bliss said. "A lot of guys really contributed tonight and I thought we frustrated them."

Marquez helped put things away with his 10-point outburst in the third quarter to go along with his five assists.