Justin-Siena starts fast to get double-digit lead as Jackson scores milestone point on way to first VVAL victory at Vintage
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Quite frankly, this has been a historic season for the Justin-Siena boys’ basketball team. In so many instances, they’ve just been crossing things off the to-do list.
They can now put a checkmark next to another thing after beating Vintage, 65-45, at Crusher Gym on Wednesday night. In the first three seasons of basketball in the Vine Valley Athletic League, they had never won a game in the gym just over a mile from their campus.
Safe to say, it’s something that senior forward Vince Jackson has been looking forward to doing for a while as a three-year varsity player.
“It feels good. It feels great,” Jackson said of getting his first win against Vintage on the road. “It’s just It’s something I’ve been waiting for for a while now. This feels good.”
It also helped that the Braves (19-2 overall, 8-0 VVAL) were able to seize control of the contest pretty much instantly. After trading initial buckets, Justin-Siena reeled off 11 straight points to take a 13-3 lead early on in the quarter. When the first quarter was over, the Braves led 21-5.
“We’re focused on playing a 32-minute basketball game, and the first minute of the game is as important as the game is important and so is the 10th minute and the 15th minute and the 20th, etc,” Justin-Siena head coach and athletic director George Nessman said. “So our focus is always on playing as the best basketball we can play that night against a given opponent and their advantage presents some challenges to us that they twist defenses. They were really trying to dictate a tempo on us and I thought they did a pretty good job in long stretches. But overall, we played a solid game.”
They also outscored Vintage 19-14 in the second to take a 40-19 lead into the break.
In the first quarter with 5:02 left, Jackson was able to eclipse 1,000 points in his time as a Braves as well. He did it by making his only two free throws of the night.
“It was great,” Jackson said of scoring his milestone point. “Especially against Vintage since they’ve always been a top team. “So it felt really good to get that. I didn’t even know I had that until they told me a couple (of) minutes ago.”
Jackson ended the night as the game’s leading scorer with 14 points while grabbing 7 rebounds. He scored 10 points in the first half of the game as well.
“I was just really trying to look for my shot trying to stay aggressive,” Jackson said of his game-high night scoring the ball. “That’s pretty much it.”
Jaden Washington added 13 points off the bench to go along with 3 rebounds, and a blocked shot. The junior scored 10 of his points in the first half as well. This continues his stretch of scoring 10-plus points off the bench.
“He’s doing great,” Jackson said of Washington. “His threes are so good. He’s definitely one of our shooters. He can finish inside, he’s athletic.”
Asher Cleary was also productive by scoring 11 points and bringing in 2 rebounds. He scored 6 of those in the first half.
“Asher is a great shooter,” Nessman explained of Cleary who can change a game when he gets his shot going for outside. “He hasn’t been shooting up to his standards. He’s still been shooting the ball pretty well, but not to his standard and it’s really nice he put some down today.”
Others scoring for Justin-Siena were Travis Hightower (8 points, 5 rebounds, 2 blocked shots), Nick Jeremaz (5 points, 2 rebounds), Ma’el Blunt (4 points, 3 rebounds), Nate Spare (4 points), Andrew Grimshaw (2 points, 1 rebound), DJ Ryan (2 points), and Chase Briskovich (2 points).
Vintage (12-10, 4-4 VVAL) was able to play much better in the second half. Part of that was the fact that they were more focused. Plus, there was less pressure as well with the game being garbage time. After all, they were able to outscore Justin-Siena 26-25 in the second half.
“They did,” Vintage head coach Ben Gongora admitted. “I was definitely disappointed in our mantra of maximum effort, positive attitude in the first half. I’m never focused on score. It’s just we were kinda uninspired and we talked about that at halftime, and that really was the discussion.”
Leading the way for the Crushers was Jace Lopez. The junior guard scored a team-high 12 points and grabbed 2 rebounds. He scored 9 points in the second half, with all of his buckets for the night being from three-point land.
“We don’t focus on it or emphasize it. But if we had a most improved player award, Jace would get it right now,” Gongora said of Lopez who has continued to improve as he’s been given more minutes. “Just from where he was in the fall, to November, to where he is now. It hasn’t been easy. I joke that Jace has a picture of me on his dartboard. But joking aside, he’s really coming along. He’s been coachable. Like I said, there has been some growing pains. He’s made an adjustment. I’ve made an adjustment and now we’re starting to see a Jace Lopez player that’s been a big contributor.”
Si Sabbagha added 11 points and grabbed 3 rebounds as well. The junior guard scored 6 points after the half as well while making 3 of 4 free throws.
Others scoring for Vintage were Miles MacPherson (9 points, 5 rebounds), Collin Durfee (5 points), Grayson Wyman (4 points, 4 rebounds), Elias Alvarez (2 points, 1 rebound), and Brady Hearn (2 points, 1 rebound).
Both teams will continue VVAL play with games on Friday night at 7 PM. Justin-Siena will host Napa High while Vintage will visit Petaluma.
In the last meetings on January 9th, Justin-Siena beat Napa 67-41 and Petaluma beat Vintage 72-65.
Other VVAL games on Wednesday night saw Casa Grande beat Napa 73-54 and Petaluma beat Sonoma Valley 72-69. You can view the updated league standings here.
