Napa has best showing of season, despite blowout loss against Clayton Valley
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Very rarely do you see a coach happy following a 30-point loss.
But, Napa coach Zack Cook was very happy following their 93-63 loss to Clayton Valley Charter-Concord.
Maybe it was the fact that he was celebrating his 42nd birthday on Friday or maybe it was because his team showed the most fight and played their best game of the season so far.
“I saw a lot of heart. I saw a lot of fight,” he explained. “I saw a team that played together for four quarters and didn’t lay down against really good Clayton Valley team. They’re much better than us tonight and in all phases, but we didn’t whine we didn’t hang our heads. We kept fighting, we kept playing, and we can walk out of the locker room with our heads high for sure. I’m proud of the way my team played and we have nothing to be ashamed of, even though we lost by 30.”
In fact, the fight from Napa (2-2) gleamed from the start in this one. Even though they were thoroughly outmatched they cut the Ugly Eagles (3-1) deficit to 13 points at one point in the first half.
It also helped that Napa was able to get past the clenches of Clayton Valley’s full-court man-on-man press.
“We talked a lot about it before the game about their pressure and staying poised and I thought we had some good press breaks,” Cook added. “I thought we did a good job for the majority of the game. But defensively, I mean we were just on skates those guys man they’re faster. They just took it to us on the offensive end.”
Yet, there was still some more positives that came from this game. Senior Jack Hunter and junior Spencer Gorman both had their breakout performances as well. Hunter ended the night with 18 points, 16 of them the first quarter, and two rebounds. Gorman added 16 points and brought in 10 rebounds to end the night with a double-double.
“That’s great with Brock out for a long time we need our posts to step up and kind of all chip in and kind of give us what we would get from Brock,” Cook said. “And Spencer’s been close every game so far this year he’s been close to kind of busting out. And I think he’s finally catching up to the speed of the game at the varsity level.”
Tyler Oda also ended the night with 13 points and a rebound to help the cause.
Napa will end their Wine Valley tournament on Saturday at 1 p.m. in the third-place game against Redwood-Larkspur. Napa will also face Redwood on December 26th to begin the Don Bambuer Classic at Marin Catholic. As for Clayton Valley, they’ll face Northgate of Walnut Creek in the championship game at 2:30 p.m. in a battle of Diablo Athletic League, Foothill division teams.
“They’re well-coached, they play year-round,” Cook said of Redwood. “They got guard play, they got post play, they’re really well-coached. They had a tough loss tonight to Northgate, so I know their coach is going to have them ready to roll tomorrow. So another tough one, but we wanted to strengthen our schedule this year and play better teams and that’s what we’re doing.”
