First quarter woes doom Justin-Siena in season-opening loss to Terra Linda
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
It goes without saying most of the time, but one bad quarter will always come back to haunt you in basketball.
That was the case for the Justin-Siena girls basketball team on Tuesday night when they dropped their season-opener to Terra Linda-San Rafael 47-37.
The Braves (0-1) got off to an incredibly slow start. In fact, they were down 12-0 in the first quarter till 43.3 was remaining when Magha Jackson scored a layup at the baseline.
“They came ready to play and we didn’t,” Justin-Siena head coach Andy Bettencourt said bluntly. “You know, we talked about the importance of a good start, and for whatever reason, they came out a lot stronger than we did. (It’s) something we’ve got to look at as a group in terms of practice yesterday, which probably could’ve been better. We gotta better prepare to start the game because I agree with you – I think that first-quarter really hurt us.”
Another thing that didn’t help Justin-Siena in the first quarter was not being able to make a shot.
“Yeah, we didn’t shoot as well as we would like to,” Bettencourt said of the shooting woes early in the contest. “But you know, we’ll keep working on it.”
The full and half-court trap Terra Linda (1-0) used also created lots of issues early on.
“It’s one thing to practice it, it’s another to see it live for the first time, and I think it did shock us,” Bettencourt explained. “And then I thought, as the game wore on, we started to recover a little better and do some fundamental things that helped us get out of it.”
When the Braves finally got going, the coach was happy with what he saw from his team in their first game of the season.
“I thought we actually did a lot of good things,” he said. “You know, we were able to control the tempo a little bit more. We played them basically evenly the rest of the game. Again, it just goes back to that start. We’ve got to be better at the start because I think for three quarters, this was a very even and good high school basketball game.”
However, Justin-Siena was hindered by free throws, which always makes a major impact. They converted 10 of 20 attempts from the line in a game that was decided by exactly ten points.
“I swear to God that we practice them every day,” Bettencourt joked. “ But yeah, we just didn’t get enough to go in tonight.”
The Braves were led by Charmaine Griffin. The senior finished the night with eight points and three rebounds. She also converted one of her two free throws.
Mary Huen finished the night with seven points, three rebounds, and two blocks. Huen converted three of four shots at the charity stripe on the night.
Cassie Richardson added six points and a rebound as well.
Leading the way on the glass was freshman center Jordan Washington. She grabbed seven rebounds and scored three points while making one of two free throws.
Justin-Siena will be back in action on Thursday night when they head over to Santa Rosa to face Piner at 6:30 pm.
