Vintage hangs around, but San Ramon Valley ultimately pulls away to take NCS playoff opener
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
The ride is over, and it’s hard to believe.
But, following their 57-41 first round loss to San Ramon Valley in the CIF North Coast Section Division 1 playoffs, the season came to an abrupt end for the Vintage girls basketball team.
“It’s sad,” Vintage senior Nicole Gleeson said after playing her final game in a Crusher uniform. “I think like this is my whole high school, like my favorite part that kept me going to school and stuff, so it’s going to be weird not seeing my best friends everyday. But, it’s going to be okay.”
However, the game was much closer than the final score indicates.
“I think going into it they kinda, maybe thought that since we’re the 14 seed we’re not going to be a hard competition,” Gleeson said of the good first half. “We definitely showed them that we deserved higher seeding.”
In the first quarter the Crushers (20-8) jumped out to a 13-8 lead, which put San Ramon Valley on their heels early.
“Usually we get out a little bit and then give it back,” Donohoe said of the good first quarter. “I’m just so proud.”
It also helped that Vintage out-rebounded San Ramon Valley 29-19 in the first half.
“That was our plan,” Vintage coach Joe Donohoe explained of the large rebounding margin early on. “We turned it over a few more times than what the plan was.”
But the Wolves (25-3) would start to get hot towards the end of the first half, and go into the break up 27-19.
In the second half Vintage made runs a few different times, but each time the Wolves countered with a run of their own each time.
The Crushers were led by two seniors who took the court for the final time on Tuesday night. Alyssa Andrews had 17 points and seven rebounds. Gleeson added 14 points, most of which came on the fast break. She also grabbed six rebounds.
“I think that was my specialty,” Gleeson explained of scoring a lot of points off of the break over her three-year varsity career.
San Ramon Valley moves on to face Mission San Jose at home on Friday night at 7 p.m.
Next year Vintage will bring back six players from this year’s team.
