Benicia storms back in the fourth quarter, takes lead with less than minute left to beat Vintage in heartbreaker to open season
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
When you lead the entire game, closing the deal is essential. But from time to time, one of those games you had will slip away.
This is precisely what happened in Tuesday’s season-opener for the Vintage girls’ basketball team when they dropped a heartbreaker to Benicia, 37-33.
Vintage (0-1) led for all but the last minute of this one. With just 55.3 left, the Panthers (1-0) took the lead on a three-pointer from the wing by Peyton Holcomb to give Benicia a 34-33 advantage.
Halcomb finished the night with 24 points. The Benicia senior point guard finished the contest on fire by 21 points in the second half and 12 in the final frame. She also knocked down four shots from three-point land.
Another reason the Crushers had a hard time closing this one out was the turnovers and missed shots that piled up and made it easier for the visitors to claw back into the contest. In the final frame. Benicia outscored Vintage 14-9.
“Lid on the basket, and then when you throw the ball to the other team, you can’t score,” Vintage head coach Zack Cook said of the final quarter of his first game back leading the Crushers in six years.
Besides those few times in the game, there is certainly plenty of positives to take away from it.
One of those came at the beginning of the game when the Crushers went on a 10-1 run to begin the game that lasted till the 3:58 mark in the first.
“We were getting some deflections and getting out in transition, getting some nice easy baskets, and not turning the ball over,” Cook said of the fast start where the Crushers were shooting well and playing solid defense.
Another thing that can be taken away from this was a solid defensive effort where the hosts allowed just 37 points, which is enough to win most nights.
In the game, the Crushers were led by guard Lizzie Qui. In the first game of her senior campaign, she finished with a team-high 12 points, 3 rebounds, and 2 blocked shots. Qui spread out her scoring evenly with half a dozen points in each half. Unfortunately, she fouled out with a little less than three minutes left in the game.
“She played hard, made some big shots,” Cook explained of Qui who is in her fourth year as a starter. “She had a couple of ticky-tack fouls that she needs to just not do. We’ve been working on that all summer and you know, if she doesn’t get those cheap ones then she can stay in the game and finish for us. But we’ll get better. It’s game one. She’ll get better and the team will get better.”
Also having a nice start to the season was Rachel Galvin. The senior finished the night with nine points – all of which came in the first half, and a team-high six rebounds.
“Rachel knocked down some shots early, and then I think they made some adjustments and pressed up on her a little bit, and took away her jump shot,” Cook added on Galvin who started the game without a missed shot from the field. “I think we got a little fatigued there in the second half. So we need to get back in the gym and work on our conditioning and get in the weight room.”
Tying for the team lead in rebounds for the night was Cienna Alvarez who grabbed six rebounds to go along with 4 points, and a pair of blocked shots.
Rounding out the scoring for Vintage was Grace Guitner (4 points, 4 rebounds), Ella Pridmore (2 points, 3 rebounds, and Julia Gerenser (2 points, 1 rebound).
It will be a while before the Crushers are back in action again. When they are back in action on November 26th at 5 pm, they’ll face a tough test from East Bay power Dublin.
