Vintage gets past Justin-Siena behind solid effort on defense and from free-throw line
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
With how tight the Vine Valley Athletic League is this year, every win is key.
But, to beat one of your crosstown rivals on the road makes it even sweeter.
That’s what the Vintage boys’ basketball team did on Wednesday night when they beat Justin-Siena 46-37.
Neither team could pull away throughout the contest, but Vintage was able to get the win thanks to free-throwing and a few scores down the stretch.
“I think it was free throws,” Justin-Siena coach Dave Granucci explained of what the difference was. “We missed 13 free throws. That’s a big part of why we lost the game. But the other part was, I felt like there was a turning point where I think it was a five or seven-point game and we had actually grabbed some momentum I felt and they had a shot kind of hit the buzzer with the shot clock going off. And then we come down, miss a putback. They come down, we fouled them on a three. That was tough to recover from.”
“Congratulations to Justin because they took us out of our game,” Vintage coach Ben Gongora said. “Towards the end, we were able to get some separation and it was some key possessions. I think we scored on two straight possessions. And then we got fouled on a third one, which Blake had his free throws, and then we were rebounding. So, it’s ball security and execution.”
Free-throwing was indeed a problem for the Braves (6-8 overall, 0-2 VVAL) as they went 10-for-22 from the line. Vintage (8-7, 2-0 VVAL) finished the night 8-for-11 from the charity stripe to help their cause.
But, another reason Vintage pulled this one out was due to a strong effort by junior guard Owen Schnaible on the defensive side of the ball. Throughout the night he had to defend Justin-Siena senior guard Liam McDevitt who scored 36 points just a few weeks ago. On the night, McDevitt had seven points and five rebounds.
“Owen got the toughest assignment of any player on this team tonight to shut down Liam McDevitt,” Gongora explained. “We have tremendous respect for Liam. He’s a phenomenal basketball player. I’ve watched countless hours of film on him and we were scared that he was going to light us up for 30-plus tonight. And he did a phenomenal job, I believe holding him to one field goal.”
“He just gave me my assignment and I just did my job,” Schnaible said of guarding McDevitt.
Justin-Siena’s other leaders on the night were Robert Sangiacomo who had seven points and Wyatt Humphries who ended the contest with seven points and four rebounds.
The Braves leading rebounder was freshman forward Vince Jackson who brought in 11 boards and also added seven points.
“He’s working hard,” Granucci said of the freshman. “I mean, he’s getting better. He’s a guy that’s gotten better throughout the year. You know, there’s other guys who have gotten better as well. Besides him, I thought Wyatt Humphries his effort tonight was really good. He was rebounding the ball and made some really aggressive effort plays that helped us.”
Meanwhile, the Crushers ended up spreading the scoring around all night. Leading the way was Imani Lopez who had 16 points and six rebounds. Josh Kho also added ten points and five rebounds, while Blake Murray pitched in ten points as well with three rebounds.
Josh McCormick led the rebounding effort by bringing in six rebounds and scoring five points as well.
Both teams will be back in action on Friday night when league play continues. Justin-Siena will visit another crosstown rival when they face Napa at 7:30 p.m. As for Vintage, they’ll visit Petaluma at 7 p.m.
In other league games on Wednesday night, Napa beat Casa Grande-Petaluma 68-58 and Petaluma beat Sonoma Valley 61-60.
