Napa gains large advantage in first quarter, routs Sonoma Valley
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Don Lex (LuckyDuckImages.com)
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
The Warriors are notorious for asserting their dominance in the third quarter.
Well, in a slight contrast the Napa High boys basketball team is starting to become a dominant first quarter team.
On Friday night Napa cruised past Sonoma Valley, 60-42, to begin the second round of round-robin Vine Valley Athletic League play with a win.
After one quarter the Grizzlies (15-5 overall, 7-0 VVAL) had a 16-point advantage, thanks to going 9-of-12 from the field and ending the quarter on a 21-2 run, that would later be a 24-2 run as the at the beginning of the second quarter.
“It started with our defense,” Napa coach Zack Cook said of the nice start to the game. “We were locked in. We were executing our defensive game plan against Sonoma and getting stops, just that was leading to buckets and we were hot early from the floor and it’s always nice to start a game like that and get out to a lead.”
Most of Napa’s points on the night came from inside the key.
“You know it’s really good,” Napa senior Zach Swim said of scoring at will against the Dragons inside. “That’s Brock (Bowers), too, grabbing rebounds and just going up strong. He’s really big in there with those. It just feels amazing to have layups fall when you need them the most when it gets close, or whenever that may be.”
“They’ve been doing that all year,” Cook said of the amount of points Swim and Bowers got from inside the key on the night. “That’s been how we’ve been winning games, and they’re really good players. They play well off of each other, and that’s just a really nice combo to have. And when they’re scoring inside, it opens up the perimeter for us for our shooters.”
The Grizzlies were led by Swim who had 20 points, and seven rebounds on the night.
But Swim left four points off the board from free throws alone as he went 2-for-6 from the line.
“I know I’ve been shooting pretty bad from the free throw line lately,” Swim explained. “I need to stay after practice. I’m probably going to do that tomorrow, and start working on free throws. You know (coach Greg) Johnson is usually the one who helps us with that stuff, so I’ll probably be with Johnson tomorrow.”
Stephen Blume and Bowers each added 14 points on the evening as well. However, Bowers ended the night with ten rebounds, while Blume only had one.
Napa will be back in action on Monday night at 5:30 p.m. when they host California-San Ramon in a non-league matchup. Their next league game, however, will be on Friday when they host Justin-Siena at 7 p.m.
