American Canyon’s stingy defense too much for Justin-Siena in VVAL opener
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Dean Ruggiero
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
When you don’t score very much it’s oftentimes hard to win.
Scoring has been a problem for the Justin-Siena boys basketball team so far this season, and it showed in their 47-40 Vine Valley Athletic League loss to Napa County rival American Canyon.
But the lack of offense was most prevalent in the fourth quarter when the Braves could only manage to put three points up on the scoreboard.
“We’ve struggled scoring all year,” Justin-Siena first-year coach David Granucci said of the lackluster scoring in the fourth quarter. “If you look at our scores even though we’re 7-2 coming into tonight, we won a game 33-32, so we’ve struggled scoring and relied heavily on our defense, which wasn’t great tonight. That’s on me, too. I mean I need to come up with better ways for us to be successful on the offensive end. I need to find better ways to make sure that these guys are put into positions to be successful on the end, and if I’m not doing that and setting them up in difficult situations or different spots on the floor where they’re not comfortable then I need to recognize that and make the adjustment.”
Another thing that the Wolves (3-8 overall, 1-0 VVAL) did well to stop their counterparts was the use of the full-court press. In the first half the Braves (7-3, 0-1 VVAL) had a hard time getting the ball over half court, which also led to some turnovers.
“We wanna pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure,” American Canyon coach Brett Wedding said of the full court defensive swarm. “We did a decent job of that, and we’re going to continue to do that..”
However, in the second quarter, Justin-Siena found their groove a little bit as they took a 25-23 lead into the break.
That quarter, in particular, was something that Granucci was happy about.
“I thought in the second quarter we kind of settled in a little bit and got our composure some and handled their pressure,” he explained. “They beat us, they outrebounded us turned us over, they sped us up, they took us out of everything that we do normally. Especially defensively, we were not good defensively tonight, so we have to be able to come into a game like this and not let the play of our opponent dictate how we play, and that’s the exact opposite of what happened.”
Justin-Siena was led by junior Guard Liam McDevitt who had 14 points and grabbed three rebounds. Barrett Donohoe and Wyatt Humphries each added five points.
The Braves will continue VVAL play on Friday when they face Petaluma at 7 p.m. American Canyon, meanwhile, will host Vintage on Friday night at 7 p.m.
