Justin-Siena plays lockdown second half defense, gets offensive role players going to grind out league-opening victory over Vintage
By Kyle Foster
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Isn’t the old saying that offense wins games, but defense wins championships? If that’s the case, then that means some good things for both teams.
On Wednesday night at Crusher Gym, the game was a defensive slugfest that saw Justin-Siena come away with a 50-37 grinding victory in the league opener.
This game was even most of the contest. But over the final four minutes of the game, the Braves (10-2 overall, 1-0 VVAL) were able to pull away to get a large margin of victory. Before this, neither team could pull away.
“We just got to we just had to get stops down the stretch,” Justin-Siena senior center Jaden Washington said as to how his team won the game. “We had to get some buckets and our role players came up big for us.”
Getting their role players going was a major key as well. After all, they were finally able to get Nick Jeramaz going in the second half from a slow first half where he scored just 4 points. He finished with 14 points and 8 rebounds while making 7 of 8 free throws.
“We’ve just got to keep feeding him the ball,” Washington said of getting Jeramaz going. “If his shots aren’t going in at first, keep shooting them. They’re going to start falling.”
Asa Hightower also added 11 points and 4 rebounds. He scored 7 points prior to the half while making 3 of 4 free throws.
Rounding out the scoring for Justin-Siena was Charlie Vaziri who scored 7 points and brought in 4 rebounds.
The separator was the fact that the Braves held Vintage (7-8, 0-1 VVAL) to 13 points in the second half.
“I thought our defense in the second half won the game for us,” Justin-Siena head coach and athletic director George Nessman said. “We held them to 13 points and you’re just not going to lose many games when you give up 13 points in a half.”
After all, Justin-Siena didn’t take their first lead till there was 3:14 left in the third quarter. The reason it was so close was the fact that everyone knows how to slow down the top threats on each team. After all, Vintage was throwing everything it had to stop Washington.
“We didn’t want to double team him, we wanted to quadruple team him,” Vintage head coach Ben Gongora said of the game plan to slow down Washington. “I would have played with six if they would’ve allowed me. Jaden is a force, so we game-planned for him. We held Justin to 50. In a high school game, you hold your opponent to 50, normally you’ve got a chance to win the game.”
Even with all of the scheming to slow down Washington, he still finished as the game’s high scorer with 16 points, 7 rebounds, and a blocked shot. He was more effective in the first half with 10 points but was more of a distributor of the ball in the second half as four guys were all over him on defense.
“I’m starting to learn what to do when I’m getting double-teamed,” Washington explained. “My teammates are getting open, which is huge. Which makes it easier for me.”
Throughout the game, Vintage was able to keep Justin-Siena at bay as they would always have an answer off of a made bucket as well. This is another reason why it came down to the very end.
“We know what they do. They know what we do,” Gongora said as to why the game was so tight. “The moment wasn’t too big for us to start.”
It also helped that the Crushers did what they often do in a game like this, which is to evenly distribute the scoring. Leading them in this contest was Jace Lopez. The senior guard finished with a team-high of 11 points and 1 rebound. He did a bit more scoring in the second half where he scored 6 points.
“He’s a high-energy guy and he’s come a long way,” Gongora said of Lopez. “ I think we got to do a better job and maybe managing minutes. Not to come up with excuses, maybe fatigue impacted us toward the stretch. So maybe a break here and there even for a little breather because there were some, some turnovers down the stretch. But yeah, Jace is a gamer.”
Others scoring for Vintage were Miles MacPherson (6 points, 3 rebounds), Connor Gongora (6 points, 1 rebound), Brady Hearn (5 points, 1 rebound), Nate Marroquin (3 points, 3 rebounds), Rory Holland (2 points, 10 rebounds), Si Sabbagha (2 points, 1 rebound), and Luke Haeuser (2 points).
As for Justin-Siena, they were able to pull away due in large part to getting contributions from some of their other plays. A prime example of this is Nick Jeramaz who finished with 14 points and 8 rebounds. He finished the game by scoring 10 points in the final half while making 7 of 8 free throws.
Both teams will continue league play on Friday at 7 pm. Vintage will travel to Petaluma. As for Justin-Siena, they’ll return home to face Napa High. In other VVAL games on Wednesday night, Napa beat Casa Grande 54-46 and Petaluma beat Sonoma Valley 71-61.
