Napa picks up first win of season over Rancho Cotate on heels of strong fourth-quarter defense in Wine Valley Tournament opener
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Don Lex (LuckyDuckImages.com)
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Getting the first win of the season can be pretty hard at times. But once you get that first win, it can mean momentum.
In Thursday’s Wine Valley Tournament opener, the Napa High boys basketball team started strong in the first quarter before getting down by 12 heading into the final quarter. With 1:01 left in the game, Dylan Newman made two free throws to give the Grizzlies the lead, which also helped them prevail with a 59-57 victory over Rancho Cotate-Rohnert Park for their first victory of the season.
The Grizzlies (1-2) mounted their fourth-quarter comeback on the heels of a strong defensive quarter in which they yielded just seven points.
“It helped that their main guy fouled out,” Napa senior forward Dylan Newman laughed. “That helped but then we just locked on everybody else.”
According to second-year head coach Joel Garcia, they didn’t change anything when the game entered the final frame.
“Absolutely nothing,” he candidly admitted. “We did the same thing we did from the beginning of tip-off, which was attack the basket, attack the basket, kick out, trust our shooters and continually attack the basket and draw those fouls.”
Free throws also played a major part in getting the Grizzlies back into the game. As a team, they made 23 of their 29 free throws.
“That was a huge factor in this game,” Garcia added. “Free throws are always a huge factor in any game. And I encourage the guys always to stay after practice and do their work and it finally paid off tonight.”
The win is also Napa’s first in the young season. It’s something that they’ve been wanting to get off their back.
“Now you have a monkey off your back – it’s nice,” Newman explained.
“That’s great. I’m glad we got it now rather than later,” Garcia explained. “And I’m just super proud of the guys and how they were able to close out the game.”
Leading the way for Napa was sophomore guard Miles MacPherson. He finished the night with 18 points and six rebounds.
Newman finished with a double-double. He finished with 17 points, 20 rebounds, and a block. He also went 12 of 13 from the free-throw line that included an 8-for-8 stretch in the fourth quarter.
“I don’t know just I don’t know what I did,” Newman said of his monster effort. It was just me tonight. Just felt good.”
Tyler Oda finished with 13 points, 10 of which came in the first half. He also brought in a rebound.
“Those three those guys, we expect them and we expect them to be able to produce every single night,” Garcia said of the three-head monster of double-digit scorers. “It’s no surprise that Dylan had his breakthrough today, and we hope that he continues to be consistent throughout the season. We expect that from Miles. We expect from Tyler -just overall great leaders on the varsity team.”
With the victory, Napa is assured of no worse than the third-place game. The win means they’ll face Santa Rosa on Friday night at 7 pm. Rancho Cotate (2-3) will face the loser of that game will face Bethel of Vallejo. In the season-opener, Santa Rosa beat Napa 75-43 on November 18th.
