Napa goes on huge run out of half to get back into game, gets shots to fall to beat San Rafael in nail-biter at Justin-Siena Christmas Classic
By Kyle Foster
Follow on X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
When a team is good out of the half, that means they don’t look at the deficit because they know they can come back.
In their second game at the 2nd annual Justin-Siena Christmas Classic, the Napa High boys basketball team showed this as they beat San Rafael, 50-46, in a game played at Clark Gym.
Napa (4-7) once again began the second half on fire. After all, they were down 27-17 at the break and then began the third quarter by going on a 13-2 run that not only got them back into the game but gave them a 30-29 lead.
“We just kind of started off slow and we knew we could play better than that,” Napa senior guard Christian Williams explained. “So halftime we’re in a locker room, I was scoreless the whole first half. We went in the locker room and talked about what we needed to do to win, and just came out aggressive and tried to take the game, and that’s kind of what happened.”
However, the offense doesn’t put together a good run like that if you don’t have the defense to go hand-in-hand with it. In the second half, the Grizzlies used their full-court press to get some easy, transition layups and put San Rafael (3-8) on the defensive.
“We went that press and we’ve used it a couple (of) times now and it’s actually had some success against various opponents,” Napa High head coach Carson Carattini said of the defense his team played in the second half. “So we show that to them and then, sometimes I’m just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, and it stuck. You saw us run off 8, 12 points there and it put us right back in the game and put them on their heels a little bit. So sometimes we’ve talked about just taking away another team’s confidence and that’s what we did in the second half.”
Lastly, the other thing that helped Napa pull off the second-half comeback was the fact that shots started to fall. In the first half of the game, they were getting plenty of good looks with the shots just not going down.
“Just like last night, when we were really hot today we weren’t as hot,” Carattini said of the first half where it appeared there was a lid on the rim as nothing was falling. “So that was one area where I was really impressed with my team tonight. We found a way to win when we weren’t making shots.”
Speaking of shots falling in the game, this was the case for Williams. The senior guard finished with a team-high of 12 points and 9 rebounds. Williams did all of his scoring in the second half while making both of his two free throws.
“I just kept shooting because I know I can shoot,” Williams said of his strong second half. “So just kept letting them fly. I knew they would go down.”
Those two free throws came after he made a crucial steal on an inbounds play and the two shots at the line sealed the win for Napa.
“I was pretty scared down on that one end,” Williams said of the final sequence where he got a key steal. “But I knew somebody had to take over and do something. So I was watching the inbounder and right when I saw him throw it there, I knew I could get it.”
After that, Jayden Quintana finished with 10 points and 6 rebounds. He scored 6 of those points in the first half and went 3 of 5 from the line.
Rounding out the scoring for the Grizzlies in the game was Will Flynn (9 points, 8 rebounds, blocked shot), Eli Mindle (9 points, 3 rebounds), Patricio Buoncristianni (5 points, 2 rebounds), and Gael Bazoungissa (4 points, 3 rebounds).
Through 11 games this season, Napa already has more wins than they did all of last season. After a 1-6 start, they have also won 3 of their last 5.
“Over the few weeks, I would just say we’re clicking more,” Williams said as to what’s changed as of late. “But this whole year, we’ve known what we could do. We’ve just had some problems putting it together. But now I feel like we’re really coming together as a group, and we’re just playing how we know we can.”
With the win, Napa will play for the consolation title at the Christmas Classic. They will finish the tournament in the consolation title game where they will meet Las Lomas-Walnut Creek at 1:30 pm. On Wednesday night, Justin-Siena beat Las Lomas in the tournament opener. Las Lomas then beat Encinal-Oakland 67-41 on Friday night.
