Huge fourth quarter leads Justin-Siena past American Canyon in home-opener
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
In basketball, trailing by double-digits can be nearly impossible to come back from.
But that wasn’t the case for the Justin-Siena girls basketball team on Wednesday night when they beat American Canyon 42-39.
When the fourth quarter started, the Braves (1-1 overall, 1-1 Vine Valley Athletic League) trailed by ten points. But to begin the quarter, they went on a 9-0 run that brought them back into the game. In the final frame, Justin-Siena outscored their Napa County rivals 16-3.
“Honestly, I think a couple (of) things (changed),” Justin-Siena head coach Andy Bettencourt said. “I think we got a little more aggressive offensively and started taking some shots that we were maybe passing up early in the game. But honestly, I think we kept playing the way we had been playing defensively and we increased our physicality and we were able to get some stops. When you’re down ten, you’ve got to get stops and we did and then we started making plays offensively and we made some big plays down the stretch. But that last possession on defense was perfect. We didn’t even let them get a shot off.”
“I think we really kept our composure,” Justin-Siena junior guard Charmaine Griffin explained. “We were all really calm.”
However, the game wouldn’t have been quite as close had the Braves connected on more of their free-throw attempts. In the first half, they made just 4 out of 12 attempts. They ended the night going 7 of 16 from the charity stripe.
“That was tough,” Bettencourt emphasized. “We’ve got to keep working on them in practice and again have the confidence that we’re good shooters. Unfortunate to leave that many points at the free-throw line, so we’ve got to keep working on it.”
It also helped the Braves got a breakout game from Griffin. On the night, she scored 22 points and brought in six rebounds. She also converted on 4 of her 5 free throw attempts. The last two free throws iced the game for Justin-Siena. Mary Huen added five points and four rebounds on the night.
“During practice, coach is always telling me to ‘keep my shoulder square, keep your arm up’,” Griffin said of her performance. “I just had that mantra in my head. Do those things and you will be successful.”
“You saw in Charmaine for two years in practice that we’ve been begging to come out,” Bettencourt explained. “Honestly, when she went to the free-throw line at the end of the game I had no doubt that those were going in. The way she played tonight, the confidence she played with, she’s pretty darn good. I’m glad she was able to come out and really show that tonight.”
Leading Justin-Siena on the glass was Lexi Rosenbrand who brought in ten boards and scored five points. Isabella Wright also brought in nine rebounds and scored five points.
“Those two battled,” Bettencourt added. “I mean, they just battled for everything. They may not have had a lot of points tonight, but they were absolutely key in the win because of the physicality they played with, the toughness they played with, and really having to play a ton of minutes.”
Justin-Siena will be back in action and at home on Friday night when they host Vintage. Meanwhile, American Canyon (1-1, 1-1 VVAL) will have the league bye on Friday night and they will play again on Saturday night when they head to Walnut Creek to face Northgate at 6 pm.
In other VVAL games Wednesday night, Vintage beat Casa Grande-Petaluma 41-33 and Sonoma Valley beat Napa 48-42.
