With game teetering, Farrington’s clutch bucket and big night leads Napa Valley past Marin in final home game of season
By Kyle Foster
Follow on Twitter/X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
In the final minutes of a game, it helps to have players on the court who are calm when the moment is big.
At Storm Gym on Tuesday night, this is what the Napa Valley College men’s basketball team had in Chris Farrington as they edged College or Marin-Kentfield, 81-80, in a nail-biter Bay Valley Conference game.
With 14.7 seconds left to play, Farrington found the bucket off of a coast-to-coast run to give the Storm (3-24, 3-12 BVC) the lead. In the next two sequences, Napa Valley played solid defense to come away with the win.
“He got that rebound on his own and he knew the situation,” Napa Valley College head coach Steve Ball said of Farrington’s impact. “He knew the situation, he knew time and score, and he knew that was the right, one of the better chances we were going to get because of the way they’ve been defending the on balls there late in the second half.”
In the game, Farrington finished with a game-leading 25 points and 5 rebounds. Farrington scored 17 points in the second half while making 3 of 4 free throws in the game.
“I was trying to be aggressive trying to get to the basket,” Farrington explained. “Big Nate shout out to him for setting those screens for me and giving me that lane. That’s all I was trying to do is just you know get to the basket get downhill.”
He was able to score by driving the basket, something that is a strength of his.
Throughout the game, the Storm were able to go on multiple 7-0 runs to keep Marin (10-17, 7-8 BVC) at bay. During this time, they were playing strong defense that led to turnovers. The trouble all season is they’ve struggled to keep the good defense going for a long period.
On the offensive end, they also had two other scorers in double-digits to be a much-needed shot in the arm.
Finishing with 15 points on 5 three-pointers in the game was Jerard Jackson. The freshman guard was able to stretch the defense by shooting over them. He scored 9 points in the first half as well. Jackson also brought in 3 rebounds.
“He shoots the ball really well,” Ball said of Jackson. “He gets shot ready well. Some people shoot well in practice when they’re just shooting and they can shoot probably better than him. But he shoots his normal percentage come game time because he doesn’t see the normal closeout coming that hard and that there’s someone in his face.”
Also finishing in double-figures was Raekwon Bell. The sophomore forward finished with 14 points and 6 rebounds. He scored 11 points in the second half while making all 4 free throws on the night.
“Rae’s great in transition when he gets a turnover at the top of the key and can push or somebody outlets it to him and he can push in the open court,” Ball said of Bell’s strengths. “Awkwardly, he’s better with his left hand in transition than he is with his right and then he also got a couple jumpers. I think it really made them come out of their zone when he made two jumpers from the free-throw line when we ran that little 1-3-1 set with him at the nail, and he knocked down a couple of jumpers there.”
Others scoring for Napa Valley in the game were Jalen Moore (9 points, 3 rebounds), Ethan Williams (8 points, 5 rebounds), Nate Broome (5 points, 4 rebounds), Jamari Taylor (4 points, 2 rebounds), and Hassan Flemming (3 points).
Leading the way for the Mariners in the game was Justin Aquino. The freshman guard finished with a team-high 23 points. He made a whopping 5 shots from beyond the arc to keep his team in the game.
Also scoring in double digits was Tre McPherson. He finished with 18 points on 7 shots from the field and 3 of 4 free throws.
Rounding out the double-digit scoring was Logan Coverson. He finished with 12 points on the night.
The win means Napa Valley will go out on a high note on their home slate after what’s been a rough season.
NVC will finish the season on Thursday at 7:30 pm when they head to Marysville to visit perennial power Yuba.
Storm honor pair of sophomores before game
Before the game started, Bell and Williams for their efforts over the past two seasons as part of Sophomore Night.
“They’re two great young men,” Ball said of his sophomores. “They’re going to do good things in life. Both of their seasons were two of the toughest seasons that I’ve had. Personally, from a basketball standpoint, it was two of the toughest years that I’ve had and they redefined residency to me. There’s resiliency and there’s toughness and they just kept coming back every day wanting to be in the basketball gym.”
