Napa Valley plays strong overtime period to beat Solano in thriller in Bay Valley Conference opener
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Sometimes you go to a game and you never know what you’re going to see. It could be the most exciting game or a snooze fest.
In Wednesday night’s Bay Valley Conference opener, the Napa Valley College men’s basketball team won a thriller against Solano, 98-92, in overtime at Storm Gym.
At one point in the game, the Storm (6-7, 1-0 BVC) held a 15-point advantage. But the Falcons (2-10, 0-1 BVC) clawed back in the final minute by going on a 5-1 run that tied the game at 90. Napa Valley blew the lead in large part to simply not eating enough time off the clock to make it impossible for Solano to come back.
“A lot of times when they made that run when it should’ve been mathematically over, we were in a hurry to a butt whooping,” Napa Valley College head coach Steve Ball said as to what happened down the stretch. “We were in a hurry when they were going well, you don’t hurry when someone else is playing well, you take your time when someone else is playing well. The other thing we did as I say, was we tried to shove 10 pounds of sugar in a 5-pound bag. We tried to make so many passes into where all the defense was when we had spacing available to us.”
Once the five-minute overtime period began, the Storm went on a 6-0 run before Solano could even score. Once they did score, the teams just traded a bucket each to give the hosts a thrilling win.
Napa Valley was able to hold multiple leads of 10 or more points throughout the second half. Two of those were 14 and the other was the already mentioned advantage of 15 points.
The first half of the contest saw both teams scoring rapidly and exchanging buckets. The Storm gained the seven-point edge at the break when Ethan Williams nailed a three-pointer with just nine ticks left on the clock till halftime.
Leading the way for Napa Valley was Cameron Joseph. The sophomore went for a team-high 24 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals. He also made 3 of his 4 free throws in the game. He scored 15 points in the second half of the game as well while converting 5 of 10 shots from the three-point line.
“He was doing everything,” Ball said of Joseph who was coming off some big moments in Monday’s game. “He needed one of those. He hit three or four threes in the second half and he was really feeling it.”
After that, Arthur Larry finished with a double-double of 18 points, 16 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, and 4 blocked shots. Larry also scored 6 of Napa Valley’s 8 points in the overtime period as well. He scored 12 of his points after halftime and went 4 of 9 from the charity stripe.
“Well, he did a great job,” Ball explained of the effort that the freshman center gave. “Against a team like that, he’s oversizing them so he can do a great job on the glass.”
Antione Thaxton added 16 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists off the bench. He was heavily relied on in the first half as he scored 10 points before the half. He also went 2-for-5 from the line in the game as well.
Finishing as the last of the double-digit scorers was Chris Thompson. He finished the game with 11 points, 1 rebound, and a blocked shot. Thompson did most of his damage early with 8 points in the first half.
Rounding out the scoring for Napa Valley was Doentae Jenkins (8 points, 4 rebounds, 2 steals), Andrew Navarro (8 points, 1 rebound, 1 assist), Albert Dennis (7 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 steals), and Williams (6 points, 1 rebound, 1 assist).
Napa Valley will now have a week off before continuing BVC play next Wednesday night at 5:30 PM when they visit Contra Costa.
