Monte Vista takes control of game in second half, beats Justin-Siena in opener of Christmas Classic
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
When it comes to winning any game of any sport, playing a second half is imperative. So in basketball when you don’t play four good quarters, it should come as no surprise to be on the wrong end when the buzzer sounds.
On the first day of the inaugural Justin-Siena Christmas Classic at the Daniel J. Clark Gymnasium, Monte Vista of Danville beat the Braves, 58-31.
With the game close at the break and Justin-Siena down 29-24, Monte Vista (6-2) came out and held the Braves (4-4) to just seven points in the final two frames of the game. That included holding Justin-Siena to a single bucket in the final quarter.
“I thought they did a really nice job defensively of taking away our inside game,” Justin-Siena head coach Andy Bettencourt said as to what changed out of the half. “Missed some open shots. But I thought (we) just couldn’t get enough good looks, turned the ball over too much, and then defensively, I thought we really took a step back in the second half – especially late.”
However, the Braves were battling the whole first half. They were able to hang around due to their varying defenses that kept the Mustangs guessing. The Braves utilized their full-court press, the half-court trap, and the 2-3 zone, which led to a lot of one-shot possessions and the game being tight early.
“I thought our kids did a great job of executing a lot of different things that we did,” Bettencourt said of the first-half execution that featured a plethora of different looks on defense. “Defensively, I thought we did a nice job of at least recognizing their players. They have a couple (of) pretty good players that we were focused on. And then offensively, I thought we did a really nice job of getting the ball inside and getting some points in the paint.”
Where things changed in the second half was that Monte Vista was able to make the zone look hurt by making the shots from beyond the arc that they had missed in the first two-quarters of the game.
Another reason the Braves had a fighters chance in the game was the breakout game of sophomore center Jordan Washington who finished the contest with a double-double of 18 points, 11 rebounds, and 2 blocked shots. She was at her best in the first half in this one where the sophomore went for 16 points. That accounted for over half of the Braves’ points in the first half of the game. Washington also had 10 of those points come in the first quarter of this one.
“Jordan did a really nice job, especially in the first half of just going after it,” Bettencourt said of the effort his sophomore center put forth. “ We’ve been really challenging her to take more on in terms of offensively and attacking and scoring. So I’m really proud of her (for) the way she played and we know that we’re going to keep challenging her to get better.”
After that, Justin-Siena had the rest of their scorers combine for 13 points. It’s an issue that will need to be addressed before league play begins in January.
“We’ve just got to continue to shoot open shots and shoot them with confidence,” Bettencourt explained as to how to get more evenly distributed scoring. “When a team packs the paint, which a lot of teams are doing to us, we have to have the ability to reverse the ball and then take good shots, open shots in rhythm.”
Coming in, it was known that this would also be a jump in competition as well. After all, Monte Vista is a division 1 team and Justin-Siena is a division 4 team. Plus, East Bay teams are always a monster, even if they’re at a lower level.
“Games against good teams make you better,” Bettencourt said of facing the Mustangs who were a challenge. “I’m a firm believer in that and we need to just make sure that we take the lessons we learned from this game and apply them going forward.”
The team’s second-highest scorer was Mary Heun. The senior finished with 6 points and 4 rebounds.
Rounding out the scoring for the hosts was Emery Messenger (4 points), Naveena Jackson (2 points, 1 rebound, 1 blocked shot), and Lauren Keller (1 point, 4 rebounds).
Justin-Siena will now have a short turnaround until they play the second game of Christmas Classic. That game will be on Wednesday at 1:30 PM against McKinleyville. They will then face University of San Francisco in the finale on Thursday night at 6 PM.
