Justin-Siena cleans up turnovers, figures out puzzle to go on key fourth quarter run and beat Vintage in VVAL tournament semifinal
By Kyle Foster
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A close game always comes down to the little things. In some instances, it’s a fast-paced chess match where coaches are trying to crack a code.
On Thursday night at Clark Gym, this was the case as the No. 1 seed Justin-Siena boys beat No. 4 Vintage, 64-52, in the semifinal of the Vine Valley Athletic League tournament.
All season long, the Braves (22-3) have been a strong second-half team. They were able to regain the lead in the third quarter when they outscored Vintage 18-12 to gain a 43-40 lead through three quarters.
“I think Vintage did a great job,” Justin-Siena head coach George Nessman explained. “Defensively, they trapped in they ran some different things out that disrupted us and we didn’t handle that very well. We turned it over way too many times in the first half and that’s mostly because of Vintage’s defense, to be honest. At halftime, we just tried to simplify the game for our guys. We’re not going to switch defenses, we’re going to guard them and we’re going to be fundamentally sound and I think we did that. And I think that was the difference. When we didn’t turn the ball over as much, we attacked the rim and we got a lot of shots in the paint and we scored on them.”
However, they were able to put the game away thanks to an 11-0 run in the fourth quarter where the lead swelled from one to 12 and all but put the game away. One of the reasons they were able to go on the burst was the fact that they took care of the ball much better after a bit of a sloppy first half.
“We really concentrated on getting the ball moved out of the traps,” Nessman said of cleaning up the turnovers. “So once we get trapped, get it out of there and attack off of that and I think we did a much better job of that in the second half. When the team commits full-on to trapping, it’s a gamble. Because you’re you’ve got to on the ball, and there’s only three defenders left and we should be able to score on those three defenders if we do it right and we didn’t do it in the first half and in the second half, we did.”
It also helped that they got most of their offensive production from four guys. However, leading the way in the game was Jaden Washington. The senior center finished with a game-high 18 points with 4 rebounds. He scored 10 points in the first half and made his only free throw in the game.
Then, it was Asa Hightower who finished as the next-highest scorer with 17 points and 7 rebounds. The sophomore made a huge impact on the offensive end where he scored 15 points in the second half. He also made 2 of 4 free throws.
“Asa was the key to the game for us I think,” Nessman said of the sophomore’s impact. “I think he did a great job defensively like he always does. But he starting to emerge offensively. He’s a heck of a player for a sophomore and I think he was the big difference-maker in the second half.”
Nick Jeramaz finished with 12 points and 4 rebounds as well. The senior guard scored 7 points in the first half as well.
The final scorer in double figures for Justin-Siena was Charlie Vaziri. He scored 11 points and grabbed 7 rebounds. The junior had a tad bit better first half, where he scored 6 points while making 1 of 2 free throws.
Rounding out the scoring for the Braves were Dallas Logwood (4 points) and Josh Madayag (2 points).
Vintage (12-16) was able to keep the contest tight through, but especially in the first half. In that half, they used their defense to get them free offensive opportunities. Their zone press forced a lot of turnovers.
“It was really to change up tempo and come out swinging,” Vintage head coach Ben Gongora said. “The last time we played them here, we were very passive, hesitant. When we played them at our place, it was a little more reminiscent of what we did tonight. And we went and did a little press. We did some rotations, some trapping, and it worked. It worked and it stymied them and they didn’t figure out the puzzle until they did.”
In the second quarter, the Crushers ran off an 11-2 run that gave them a 28-19 lead. This was their largest lead of the game.
Leading Vintage in the contest was Jace Lopez. The senior guard finished with a team-high of 13 points and 2 rebounds. He scored 7 of those points in the first half.
After that, it was Connor Gongora. He finished with 12 points on 4 shots from deep. He scored 9 points in the first half. The one thing that also changed the game was when Justin-Siena decided to put Washington on Gongora who had the hot hand and scored 3 points in the second half.
“Connor was getting the hot hand and they kind of stymied that,” the coach said of Washington guarding his son who has been on a role for the last week or so. “And then we just got a little stagnant there when they went on the run. We were feeding so much off our defensive energy and then when that kinda simmer down a little, we couldn’t get it to transit. We no longer could feed off that on the offense and end and kudos to them. They really turned it into us for an offensive half-court game.”
Brady Hearn scored 11 points and grabbed one rebound. He scored 8 points in the second half and made 3 of 4 free throws.
Others scoring for Vintage in the game were Miles MacPherson (7 points, 5 rebounds), Nate Marroquin (6 points, 1 rebound), Adar Yildiz (2 points, 3 rebounds), and Rory Holland (1 point, 3 rebounds).
With the win, Justin-Siena advances to the VVAL league tournament tile game on Saturday at 7 pm where they’ll meet American Canyon. In the other semifinal, American Canyon beat Petaluma 62-55.
In both league meetings this season, Justin-Siena won. Most recently on February 3rd, Justin-Siena won 59-54. Before that on January 18th, Justin-Siena won 67-49. The game on Saturday will be played at a neutral site of Napa High.
