LA VERNE — The La Mirada boys basketball team trailed by 16 points at halftime against Texas’ Parish Episcopal in the first round of The Classic at Damien on Thursday before mounting an incredible comeback.

The Matadores pulled off a 76-72 victory to advance to the quarterfinals in the Platinum Division.

They will take on Redondo, a 93-78 winner over Destiny Christian, on Friday at 4 p.m. in Damien’s Athletic Center.

La Mirada was led by the dynamic backcourt duo of sophomore Gene Roebuck and senior Julien Gomez, who combined for 58 points.

Roebuck connected on 13 of 21 shots to finish with a game-high 31 points, including 14 in the fourth quarter to spur the second-half comeback. Gomez finished with 27 points.

“It’s hard coming in off the break,” Roebuck said. “At halftime we locked in and said we are better than this and we know we can beat them. We just locked in that second half.”

La Mirada head coach Randy Oronoz said the message at halftime wasn’t complicated.

“We just kept telling our guys, get stops and push, get stops and push and we made a couple more plays at the end than them,” Oronoz said.

Oronoz also mentioned that playing the day after Christmas causes a lot of players to be more tight than usual.

“Playing after Christmas is weird. Guys are kinda lackadaisical, so they didn’t start off hot,” Oronoz noted. “We knew it was only a matter of time.”

Gomez scored 14 of his 27 points in the second half.

“When you’re down 16 at the half, usually it leads to a blowout, but we just stuck together and trusted each other,” Gomez said. “We got big stops and made big buckets at the end and we just came through.”

Gomez attributed the Matadores slow start to an abundance of good food over the Christmas break.

“The first half we were a bit slow. I’m not gonna lie, all of us ate a lot over Christmas break and we were just playing slow,” Gomez said with a chuckle. “Once we got our engines running and adrenaline pumping, we started locking in on defense and started getting boards and making shots.”

It was a rocky first half for La Mirada as it seemed that Parish Episcopal couldn’t miss. The Panthers scored 43 points in the first half while La Mirada put up 27 points.

It was a different story in the third quarter, as La Mirada exploded offensively for 25 points to cut the Parish Episcopal lead to eight points.

La Mirada guard King-Riley Owens had 16 points in the third quarter to help spur the Matadors along.

“King-Riley in that third quarter was big for us,” Oronoz said. “… King-Riley really sparked that comeback for us.”

The Matadores took the lead late in the fourth quarter. With under a minute to go, they went ahead 69-68. The lead reached 73-68 lead after a technical foul was assessed to Parish Episcopal.

Parish Episcopal guard Sawyer Batz had 19 points.