Justin-Siena seizes control early thanks to strong defense, has three scorers in double figures to beat Healdsburg
By Kyle Foster
Follow on Twitter/X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
The old saying is that defense wins championships. This was what one would call a defensive clinic.
On Saturday night at Clark Gym, the No. 3 seed Justin-Siena girls showed how they earned that seeding as they beat No. 6 Healdsburg, 53-32, in a CIF North Coast Section Division 4 quarterfinal.
Right away, the Braves (25-5) were able to take this game over in the first quarter, where they held Healdsburg (27-3) to just 3 points.
Another reason Justin-Siena was able to win the game was the fact that they limited Hailey Webb to just 9 points in the game. Throughout the season, she has been the leading scorer for the Greyhounds and was limited in the game, but was still her team’s leading scorer.
“We just wanted to stop her from shooting,” Justin-Siena junior Madyson Carson said of what the goal was to stop Webb. “Obviously, she didn’t get shots up, but just to kind of stop her from her normal run I guess, and just like being there and being on her making sure we communicate as a team on defense and just being in help and being on her.”
However, it also helped that Dylan Zapolski was making shots from deep which opened up the offense. The sophomore guard finished with a game-high of 13 points with a rebound as well. She scored 7 points in the second half and made three shots from beyond the arc in the game.
“Well, Dylan was the first person in the gym today and I think that speaks volumes,” Justin-Siena head coach Andy Bettencourt said of Zapolski who was first-team all-VVAL. “We did a little bit of film work with her and showed her some things and the great thing about Dylan is she’s a great shooter and she’s got a great mindset and she loves basketball. So what she did was she worked and she put her mind to it and I’m really happy for her. Because I know how much she cares. I know how much she loves the sport and this team, and for her to come out and have a big game for her team was awesome.”
It was a bit of relief for her to make her marquee shot as well as she had been in a rough stretch coming into the game as well.
“That first one, you know, that was huge for me,” Zapolski said of the first shot from three that she made. “It lit my face up honestly. I was really happy to see one go down. It had been two games, which is rough and just to see that first one go down, it felt like the weight was off my shoulders, and I could just play free. And even if it didn’t go down, my mindset was supposed to be to keep shooting, but that first one really helped.”
Finishing as the second scorer in double figures in the game was Lauren Keller. The sophomore guard scored 12 points and brought in 4 rebounds. Keller scored 6 points in each half and made 3 of 4 free throws.
In the contest, Carson finished with 11 points and was a monster on the boards by grabbing 14 rebounds. She scored 7 points in the second half and made 1 of 2 free throws in the game to finish as the teams third scorer in double figures.
“I was just trying to score, like get on the board I guess,” Carson said of her game. “But also for my team. I really wanted to go to state, which we did. But I just wasn’t really thinking about it.”
In the game, Carson was dominant in the paint as she scored 10 of her points from right around the basket.
“I’ll tell you three or four weeks ago, Maddie really started to turn a corner,” Bettencourt said of Carson. “And since then she has become just a major player for us. Honestly, in the fourth quarter, we couldn’t take her off the floor. She was doing so well and it’s so exciting because she worked so hard. She’s put so much time in. And what really changed was she figured out how physical she has to play to be successful. Now, she’s knocking down shots and it’s just fun to watch. I’m so proud of her.”
Others scoring in the game for Justin-Siena were Jordan Washington (9 points, 11 rebounds, 3 blocked shots), Naveena Jackson (6 points, 4 rebounds), and Sophia Dominici (2 points, 4 rebounds).
Rounding out the scoring for Healdsburg were Allie Espinoza (8 points), Ashley Behrens (6 points), Ruby Leffew (6 points), and Hannah Sellards (3 points).
With the win, the Braves have punched their ticket to the semifinals where they will face University on Wednesday at 7 pm in San Francisco after No. 2 seed University beat Del Norte 54-33 on Saturday. The game will be played at University High School. It will be the second time they have met this season after the Red Devils (23-6) beat them 58-41 back on December 2nd. You can view the updated playoff bracket here.
Another thing the victory handed them was a bid to the CIF State playoffs that begin in two weeks. It will be their first state playoff berth in 9 years after they last went in 2015.
“Our kids started working about this time last year on just getting better and improving,” Bettencourt said of the journey to make the state playoffs. “But they’ve spent so much time in the gym that you know, I think it’s called the unseen hours. This team has spent so much time working hard. They put in a great amount of time in the summer as a team we have everybody at everything and that has helped so much. I’m excited for them because it’s so cool to see the hard work pay off.”
