Little things come back to haunt Justin-Siena in loss to Gateway
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Execution has been hurting the Justin-Siena boys basketball team lately.
It came back to bite the Braves on Saturday when they lost to Gateway-San Francisco 47-33.
“A combination of execution and effort, yeah,” Justin-Siena coach David Granucci said of what cost his team the game.
After the first quarter Justin-Siena (10-8) trailed by eight points, but thanks to a good second quarter they were only down by three at the half.
“We made threes,” Granucci emphasized. “We made threes. We hit about three or four threes in the second quarter, and cut into their lead.”
In the second quarter it was defensive rebounding that brought the Braves back into the game.
“They missed some gimmies around the rim and we were able to rebound those misses, but maybe just them missing shots and us rebounding the basketball,” said Granucci of the good defensive rebounding in the second quarter. “But what really got us back into the game was making those threes.
Justin-Siena was led by Jaden Satten who had eight points and ten rebounds.
“He plays extremely hard for us, and really does a good job on the offensive glass,” Granucci said of the sophomore forward. “He finished around the rim, got to the line, did a lot of good things for us offensively.”
Shane Rosenthal and Dominic Moore each added six points as well for the Braves.
Justin-Siena will be back in action on Monday night at 7 p.m. when they host Casa Grande of Petaluma. Then, on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. they’ll visit their Trower Avenue rival Vintage.
“We’ll see,” Granucci said of what he’s expecting from their next two Vine Valley Athletic League matchups. “If we just play hard and get our best game on the floor, and see what we can do, so that’s the goal. The expectation for us is we’re trying to build a culture here and that’s going to take time. It doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t happen over one game, or two weeks, whatever. It takes months and months of development, so you’re going to take some lumps along the way. But you know if we can bounce back and give forth an effort that’s all we can ask for.”
