City College of San Francisco’s pair of first half scoring sprees doom Napa Valley in final day of Storm Surge Tournament
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
In a basketball game, one or two runs by the opponent can doom you.
This is what happened on Sunday afternoon at Napa Valley College’s Storm gym the City College of San Francisco beat Napa Valley, 73-49, in the final game of the Storm Surge Tournament.
The Storm (4-5) played a close game in the first half with the exception of when the Rams had a pair of scoring sprees. The first came in the first quarter until the 2:31 mark when they scored eight straight points. Then, CCSF reeled off another 10 unanswered points with 6:02 left in the first half.
Head Coach Paul DeBolt said that this is what happens when a team is young like the Storm are this season.
“Well, we’re young and we’re too emotional,” he explained. “Basketball is a game of execution. It’s not a game of emotion. You can be emotional, but you can’t have a negative emotion. You can’t give a team like that the openings that we gave them because we didn’t get back defensively, or we don’t react to their pressure, we whatever it was, we don’t rebound. We give them open shots because we’re not being attentive. Those are the kinds of things that that young teams, those kinds of mistakes that young teams make.”
It also didn’t help that when Napa went to a 2-3 zone City College of San Francisco (9-1) was able to shoot their way past by making shots from beyond the arc.
“I mean, they have big kids and they have shooters, so pick your poison,” DeBolt said. “But you can’t let shooters get loose, and then you’ve got to box out. You’ve got to rebound. We’re undersized. We know that. We have one big kid and she can only play like three or four minutes at a time. So we’re undersized and teams take advantage of that.”
Then again, this is also what happens when you face a state-ranked team.
“They’re really good,” DeBolt said of the Rams. “They’re ranked high, and they’re better than their ranking. So they’re a solid team.”
Leading the way for the Storm was 2021 Napa High graduate Maizy Armstrong-Brown. The freshman guard finished with 15 points and a rebound.
The only other double-digit scorer was 2019 Vintage graduate Nicole Gleeson who finished with 11 points and brought down five rebounds.
“They’re our captains. We expect them to play well,” DeBolt pointed out. “ So it’s not a surprise when they play well. Nicole is one of the best players in the state. She’s a great defensive player, a great all-around player. Maizy, she’s got a real upside. Maizy is learning how to compete at this level, and we were asking her to do things that I think she’s not always comfortable with what we’re asking her to do, but she’s a savvy player, and she’s crafty. She had a nice game. I mean, she got open threes.”
Addison Alsbury and Katie Schiebold tied for the team lead in rebounding by bringing in a team-high six rebounds.
Alsbury finished with five points in the contest. She knocked down both of her free throws as well. Meanwhile, Schiebold finished with three points in the game. She made 1 of her 2 free throws as well.
Napa Valley will have four days off before their next game on Friday night at 7 pm when they host Contra Costa College to begin Bay Valley Conference play.
