Pair of first half spurts, Giles monster game leads Napa Valley past Sacramento City in season-opening win
By Kyle Foster
Follow on X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
In the first game of the season, you never quite know what you’re going to see. You don’t know what your team will do when it finally matters.
On Wednesday night at Storm Gym, the Napa Valley College women’s basketball team made an opening night statement as to how good they can be as they routed Sacramento City College, 70-45.
The Storm (1-0) seized control of the game as the first half ended as they went on a 20-0 run that lasted till there were just 11 seconds left in the half. This run gave Napa a 45-18 lead heading into the break while also putting the game away.
“We got some good steals and converted,” Napa Valley College head coach Paul DeBolt explained. “We made some threes and we got to the free-throw line. So those are the three things you really need to do. Get layups make threes and get the free throw line, and we did that. I don’t know how many threes we had in that run. Maybe it was just two. We had a lot of layups had a couple of mid-rangers. We probably had four or five free throws. So that was nice. And we’re mixing it up and defensively, we kind of had them off balance a little bit. So that’s what we tried to do mix up defenses and keep people off balance.”
Before that huge run to end the half, Napa Valley finished the first quarter and began the second by going on an 8-0 burst that moved the score from 13–8 to 20-8. The run finally came to an end with 8:58 left in the half.
“I think everybody just kind of fell in place in the game,” Napa Valley College sophomore guard Brooklyn Giles explained. “The Florida game had got going. So everybody’s role just like fell into place, and we just executed perfectly. And everybody did what they needed to do on offense and defense.”
However, another reason the Storm came away victorious in this one was the monster game from one of their leaders on the team this season. After all, Giles finished the contest as the game’s leading scorer who finished with a whopping 30 points and 28 rebounds in the game for a double-double. She scored 19 of her points in the first half while going 9-for-9 at the free-throw line. She also had 7 assists and 5 steals in the game.
“I’ve gotten a lot better this offseason,” Giles said of her massive game. “I put in a lot of hours, and I just tried to get better. Each game I just try to slip on like it’s my last you know. I try to play my heart, especially this year for this team. I know that as a sophomore coming back, I have to lead by example. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
Also adding 15 points on five shots from three-point land was Alicia Johnson. The sophomore scored 12 of her points in the first half. Johnson also hauled in 6 rebounds in the contest.
Hadeieh Gallegos added 10 points and 4 rebounds. Rounding out the scoring for the Storm were Jordyn Allen (8 points, 10 rebounds), Aaliyah Gaitan (5 points, 1 rebound), and Daralonie Sykes (2 points, 3 rebounds).
Another thing that makes this win even more impressive is the fact that Napa Valley was outnumbered in the contest as far as the number of available players they had coming into the contest. In the game, the Storm only suited 6 players. All of these players scored and had a rebound as well.
“It’s always a challenge to have fewer than seven players,” DeBolt pointed out of going through a game with just six players. “With six, anything can happen. Basketball’s a physical game, things can happen during a game.”
Yet another thing that helped the Storm was the fact that they took advantage of their chances when they went to the line. After all, they converted 11 of 17 shots from the charity stripe as well.
Napa Valley will be back in action on Saturday at 6 p.m. when they host College of the Redwoods from Eureka.
