Mendocino gets hot from three-point line, goes on run to extend lead in the second half to beat Napa Valley
By Kyle Foster
Follow on X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
When you’re facing a fundamentally sound team, you have to stick to the game plan that was drawn up.
In Friday night’s Bay Valley Conference game, this is what went wrong for the Napa Valley College men’s basketball team when they lost to Mendocino of Ukiah, 85-66, in a game played at Storm Gym.
In the second half, the Eagles (11-11 overall, 7-3 BVC) were able to take control of the game about midway through the second half when they pushed the lead to 20. They were able to do this by taking advantage of the room Napa Valley (2-21, 2-9 BVC) gave them to knock down shots.
“We short closed I feel like, which is not aggressive enough,” Napa Valley College head coach Steve Ball explained. “We say anybody gets worn Mendocino jersey, he’s got a green light when they step on the floor and we were short closing a lot, meaning that we’re not taking away the three-point shot. We’re playing it safe and closing it, which is not aggressive. We’ve been talking about being aggressive defensively and offensively for the past week or so. So I think that gave them a comfort level to know that, ‘Well, he’s not going to fly at me, so I can just shoot this regardless of where he is.’ So I think that let them be comfortable.”
Mendocino has always been a team that likes to put up shots from the three-point line. In the first half of the game, they weren’t getting them to fall and the game was close. In the first half, they only made 6 shots from long range and were missing a lot of open looks they had as well. But in the second half, they made 7 more shots from deep to make 13 total in the game.
“I believe that if you decide to follow the script of how we teach it, I don’t think it should be that hard,” Ball said of stopping the Mendocino three-point attack. “But it is difficult if that makes sense. Like it’s difficult to do it, but you have to commit to it. I would’ve been fine had we committed to it and they made all those shots to defending the way we talk about because we’re supposed to be the aggressive one, we’re supposed to contest that.”
Leading the Eagles in the game was Nik Burns. The sophomore finished with a game-leading 25 points. He scored 13 points in the first half and made a whopping 5 shots from deep in the game while going 4 of 4 from the line.
After that, they also had two other scorers in double figures to help spread out the scoring.
Napa Valley was able to take their biggest lead of the night early on in the first half when they led 14-7. That came after an 8-0 run where they were playing solid defense and forcing tough shots.
It also helped that the Storm got a good game from Jerard Jackson. The freshman guard finished with a team-high of 17 points and 3 rebounds. He scored 9 points in the first half and made 5 shots from behind the three-point line in the game.
“He does a great job of knocking down shots,” Ball said of Jackson. “He’s our best catch-and-shoot shooter, especially during conference play. He caught a cold spell in the second half when they made those runs. You got to know it can’t just be green, right?”
Chris Farrington added 14 points and 6 rebounds to finish as the other scorer in double digits. He scored 9 points in the second half as well. The sophomore captain also went 2 of 4 from the free-throw line.
Others scoring for Napa Valley were Jalen Moore (9 points, 11 rebounds), Jamari Taylor (9 points, 6 rebounds), Hassan Flemming (6 points, 5 rebounds), Oliver Aandahl (6 points, 1 rebound), Nate Broome (3 points, 7 rebounds), and Raekwon Bell (2 points, 2 rebounds).
With the season starting to wind down, the goal for the end of the season is to play spoiler for others.
“We want to be the wrecker of other people’s party,” Ball said of the mentality down the stretch. “We want to come to other people’s part and we want to ruin it for them. Well, I wouldn’t want to lose to a two-win team.”
Napa Valley will continue BVC play next Wednesday at 6 pm when they visit Los Medanos-Pittsburg.
