Swim leads Napa in victory over California
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
It may not have been a league game, but it was still an important one.
The Napa High boys basketball team came away with a important 57-52 non-league victory over California-San Ramon, which should improve their playoff seeding when the CIF North Coast Section Division 1 basketball playoffs start.
The game was close at the end, but Tyler Oda knocked down two free throws to click a Napa victory.
“That was a big win, especially at the end,” Napa senior Zach Swim said of the importance of the win. “We missed 14 free throws, again free throws killing us, but it’s a big win because it helps us in our division one rankings towards playoffs since this is the third team that we’ve played that’s division one and now we’re 3-0, so that’s a big one.”
“It’s a nice win,” Napa coach Zack Cook said of the win over another D1 team. “It’s another division one win, and it’s a team from the East Bay League, which is one of the best in NorCal for sure. So, it’s nice, it’s a nice win.”
Throughout the season Napa (16-5) has had some struggles against some teams full-court press, and in the first half of the game California (9-10) was getting points by using their press, which gave them a 14-9 lead after a quarter.
“I don’t think we did anything special,” Cook explained of beating California’s press. “We just calmed down. They came out and hit us in the mouth hard early, and I think we were a little surprised by their speed and physicality, and we got a little shaky there. But really we didn’t change our press break. We just tried to move the ball quicker and use our spacing and that helped us when we finally started doing that.”
With the win Napa also stays unbeaten on their home court, but in the first half things looked as though Napa might lose their first game at home.
“That’s awesome. We love that,” Swim added about being undefeated at home. “We love that we haven’t lost at home yet, especially against a good team like this. They’re pretty big, pretty physical, and this is probably the first team at Napa High that I’ve played for that has responded back and stayed in the game. It was awesome.”
It was a night where Napa was led by Swim. He had an astounding 29 points and 7 rebounds on the night.
“I missed a couple free throws, but honestly I’ve just got to give it up to my teammates looking to find me when I’m open and letting me take it when I want to or when I can,” Swim said of his big night. “They trust me with the ball and TO (Tyler Oda) looking to give it up on certain plays like ISO, four, all the plays that we have that they run to me, but it’s awesome. I just love how my teammates trust me and we all trust each other.”
Sophomore Brock Bowers had an under-the-radar type of night as he had 10 points and brought in 12 rebounds.
“You kinda just forget about him because he just does that every game,” Cook said of the sophomore. “(He’s) just blue collar, doesn’t celebrate, doesn’t show boat. He just does his job, and he’s a beast man. He’s a beast on the boards.”
However, it wasn’t the best night from the free throw line for Napa as the Grizzlies only went 16-for-30 from the line, and missed a lot of front ends of 1-and-1s.
“It’s a little discouraging,” Cook said of all the missed shots from the line. “We’ve been a pretty good free throw shooting team on the year. We’re right below 70%, but we’ve had a couple games recently where we’ve made things a little closer than they need to be.”
Napa will be back in action on Friday night at 7 p.m. when they host a hungry Justin-Siena squad. On January 4th Napa beat Justin-Siena 52-35.
