Napa Valley College overcomes nine-point second half deficit to beat Merritt in Bay Valley Conference opener
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
After dropping a few heartbreakers lately, it’s always nice to see the tables turn and result in a victory.
Well, for the Napa Valley College men’s basketball team that’s exactly what they did in their 78-74 victory over Merritt-Oakland.
“It’s great to see the resiliency of the group,” Napa Valley College coach Steve Ball said. “We definitely had a few chances to be struggling and to pack it in and we continued to fight because it mattered to them. We weren’t in a situation where we could get complacent because we weren’t in a situation where we could get complacent.”
The win is very nice for the Storm (3-10 overall, 1-0 Bay Valley Conference) because they’ve had a knack for losing games in gut-wrenching fashion.
“It’s an amazing feeling,” Napa Valley College sophomore forward and 2016 Napa High School graduate Saleem Ali-Musa explained. “But I can’t even explain the feeling because it’s been kind of a rough preseason. But to come out on top, and this actually puts us in first in our conference. So, that’s really good. But you know, it’s an amazing feeling. But, we also know we got to keep in mind we got to keep grinding to get that second, third win and keep it rolling.”
It also helps that Napa Valley had to overcome a nine-point deficit in the second half in order to pull this one out.
“We won the last three minutes and it’s been a while since we’ve done that,” Ball said of overcoming a nine-point margin.
However, one thing that helped the Storm got a nice breakout performance by Saleem Ali-Musa. He ended the night with 22 points, 13 of which came in the second half to go along with eight rebounds to lead the charge.
“That’s just the stuff we’ve been working on in the offseason,” Ali-Musa said of his big night. “You know, I really wanted to expand my game this year. And tonight was just an example of all the hard work paying off.”
Ali-Musa was also scoring in a variety of ways on the night as he was knocking down three-pointers to go along with shots in the key.
“He was aggressive,” Ball added. “When he plays and he’s not sure where and when to go or what to do as far as being aggressive and asserting himself into games is when he kind of checks out and kind of disappears. So, we kind of make sure now recently that we’ve got a couple of different specials that we can get him the ball.”
Other key contributors were Braxton Adderly and Jaivon Williams who both ended the night with 15 points. Williams also brought in 14 boards to lead the Storm, while Adderly had four rebounds.
“Jaivon’s an interesting matchup for guys because he’s got that length and you don’t expect someone’s two-guard to go rebounding 14 times,” Ball said of Williams. “So, you kind of forget about him, forget to check him off and he’s corralling some and then he goes in defensively and he’s usually guarding a guy who’s going in as their point guard. So, he’s able to come in and corral and scoop up some of those free balls and take it away from people.”
“I love them. I love all my teammates,” Ali-Musa said of his teammates who also had good games. “We all mesh well together and we couldn’t do it without each other.”
“He’s just really filling the stat sheet,” Ball said of Adderly. “ He’s our leader down the stretch. We said ‘hey, just give them a ball.’”
Napa Valley will be back in action on Saturday, December 28th at 3 p.m. when they head to Kentfield for a game against the College of Marin.
