Justin-Siena wins turnover battle, gets big games from Washington, Jeramaz to beat Napa High
By Kyle Foster
Follow on X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
In basketball, there are many things that you can control if you want to win a game. For example, if you win the turnover battle, you will likely win the game.
On Friday night, this is what the Justin-Siena boys basketball team did as they beat Napa High, 64-46, in a Vine Valley Athletic League game played in the Daniel J. Clark Gym.
In the game, the Braves (11-2, 2-0 VVAL) could limit their turnovers to just 12. On the other hand, they forced Napa (5-9, 1-1 VVAL) to turn the ball over 24 times. With these extra possessions, Justin-Siena could not only maintain the lead but pull away a little bit more as the game went on.
“We always talk about (how) every possession is valuable, and especially when you’re playing quality teams, if you give them extra opportunities,” Napa High head coach Carson Carattini explained. “We say every possession is worth one point. So if you’re telling me, we were out-possessed by 12, there’s 12 points. In a game where they can play with a little bit of ease and comfort with that separation, it makes it more difficult for us.”
The Braves also shut down some of Napa’s most prolific scorers in the game as well. One of the things the Grizzlies do well is make threes. Throughout the night Napa couldn’t ever get good looks from beyond the arc to get their offense going.
“One of the things we talked about is ‘Look, you don’t have to concede threes to stop the drive, you need to be able to do both,’” Justin-Siena head coach and athletic director George Nessman said of the defensive mindset his team had trying to stop a quick Napa team. “We were able to do both a lot tonight and we took away some of the three balls we normally hit, as we were out guarding them, but we didn’t give up too many penetration opportunities out of that. You need to be able to do more than one thing defensively and we were able to do that today.”
However, the biggest reason why they won the game was the fact that senior Jaden Washington was simply unguardable. He led the Braves with a game-high night of 23 points, 2 rebounds, and a blocked shot. Washington scored 13 of those points in the second half while making 2 of 6 shots from the free-throw line.
He was making shots from all over the floor as well. It didn’t matter what defense was thrown at him, as he was getting to the bucket off the dribble and also popping threes from time to time throughout the game.
“Our coaching staff really was working on giving me different looks some more driving opportunities as opposed to just trying to post-up,” Washington said of how he was able to score from all over in the game. “So it made it harder for them to double-team and that really helped us.”
Also having a nice game in this one was Nick Jeramaz, who was celebrating his birthday. The senior guard finished with 18 points and 2 rebounds. He scored 10 points before the break while going 2 of 3 from the line.
“Our games really complement each other,” Washington explained. “Nick, he’s unbelievable. He was balling out.”
Others scoring for Justin-Siena in the game were Asa Hightower (5 points, 2 rebounds, 2 blocked shots), Andrew Grimshaw (5 points, 1 rebound), Charlie Vaziri (4 points, 9 rebounds, 1 blocked shot), Dylan Arnold (3 points, 2 rebounds), Dallas Logwood (3 points, blocked shot), and XiAno Ortega (2 points, 2 rebounds).
Napa did a little bit better on the glass in this game as they came away winning the rebounding battle 23-22. The problem was they were unable to turn this into many points to keep the game tight. It was also very hard to score in the paint all night long as well.
Leading the Grizzlies in the game was senior guard Jayden Quintana. He finished with a team-high 19 points and brought in 4 rebounds. He had pretty even scoring throughout the game but did a little bit better in the first half where he scored 9 points while also converting on 2 of 3 free throws.
Quintana was able to do this by being the lone person who was able to finish around the rim, which is one of the best qualities in his game.
“He’s excellent in terms of his ability to put pressure on the paint, and on the defense,” Carattini said of Quintana. “He’s averaging, I think six paint attempts per game, including six and a half free throw attempts per game. So he puts a ton of pressure on everybody. There hasn’t been a team where I felt like they could keep him out of the paint.”
Also finishing with double figures for Napa was senior guard Eli Mindle. He ended the night with 12 points and 2 rebounds. Mindle was able to get going a bit in the second half as he scored 9 points after the break.
Others scoring for Napa were Christian Williams (7 points, 3 rebounds), Will Flynn (5 points, 8 rebounds, 2 blocked shots), and Gael Bazoungissa (3 points, 3 rebounds).
Both teams will continue league play next week. Justin-Siena will play a non-league game at home against Sacred Heart Prep of San Francisco at 3 pm. Their next league game will be Wednesday night in Petaluma when they visit Casa Grande who is led by former assistant coach Nick Guillory. That game will tip at 7 pm. Meanwhile, Napa will have yet another road game on Monday at 7 pm when they visit American Canyon.
In other VVAL games Friday night, Casa Grande beat American Canyon 56-49 and Petaluma beat Vintage 59-40.
