Casa Grande edges Justin-Siena in overtime thriller
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
With how incredibly tight the Vine Valley Athletic League is this season, there’s very little room for error.
But with that, you get some great games. One of those classic games took place on Wednesday night when Casa Grande-Petaluma beat Justin-Siena, 49-48, in overtime.
Down the stretch, the Braves (8-10 overall, 1-4 Vine Valley Athletic League) had chances to ice the game when they held their biggest lead of three points in the third and fourth quarters.
“There were some possessions defensively that we broke down,” Justin-Siena coach Dave Granucci said. “There were some gimmies around the rim that we missed, some turnovers that were costly.”
In the end, though, it was just a matter of who made a few more plays, and that’s exactly what Casa Grande (5-13, 2-3 VVAL) did. This was also Justin-Siena’s second overtime game of league play after they beat Napa on January 10th.
“It just comes down to a 50-50 game and they made a few more plays down the stretch than we did,” Granucci added.
Another thing that could’ve been the difference was the fact that they went 13-of-18 from the line, which is still a solid effort from the stripe. But in this sense, it could sting given how close the contest was.
Leading Justin-Siena on the night was Wyatt Humphries. The junior forward scored 15 points and brought in 10 rebounds to end the night with a double-double.
“Well, Wyatt plays extremely hard and he rebounds the basketball for us,” Granucci explained. “He’ll knock down an open three, so he gives us good stuff. He was just the guy who was because they were definitely paying a lot of attention to Liam and even Vince at times. So, we try to put him in spots to be successful and it paid off for him.”
Liam McDevitt added 13 points and five rebounds to help the cause.
The leader on the glass was Vince Jackson who grabbed 12 boards and also scored nine points on the night.
“We talked to them about being active on the glass,” Granucci said of the rebounding on the night. “I mean, Casa’s active on the offensive glass, so we had to make sure that we held them to one shot. That was key. We feel like Wyatt and Vince can be aggressive on the offensive glass. They do a good job and they have done a good job over the last several games of doing that.”
Both teams will be back in action on Friday night at 7 p.m. Casa Grande will visit Sonoma Valley and Justin-Siena will host Petaluma.
The other VVAL games on Wednesday night also went to overtime. In those, Petaluma beat Napa 70-67 and Sonoma Valley beat American Canyon 75-70.
