Justin-Siena makes plays down stretch, scores majority of points around rim to beat McKinleyville and punch ticket to section title game
By Kyle Foster
Follow on Twitter/X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
At the end of the day, basketball at its core is about getting stops and scoring on the other end. This is how you gain separation.
In Wednesday night’s CIF North Coast Section Division 4 semifinal, this is what the No. 1 seed Justin-Siena boys did as they beat No. 5 McKinleyville, 58-47, in a game played at Clark Gym.
In the second half, the Braves (25-3) were able to gain an edge when they won the quarter by outscoring the Panthers 22-11. This also gave them a nice 14-point edge as the fourth quarter was about to start.
During that quarter, they were able to get some key stops and make some big shots, which helped the lead grow.
“We just got stops down the stretch and we ran our offense better,” Justin-Siena senior center Jaden Washington said of the difference in the game. “We weren’t executing in the first half and that’s a credit to their defense. But we found a way to execute towards the end of the game and that’s what helped us.”
The other thing that changed was the fact that Justin-Siena was the one dictating the tempo after being pushed around a bit in the first half.
On the offensive end, they also had to work to score throughout the night. One of the key focuses was getting the ball into the paint to score. This was vastly different from the other night when they made 19 shots from the three-point line. In this game, they made just 3 shots from the three-point line.
“There’s no question that we needed to get inside scoring,” Justin-Siena head coach George Nessman said. “Look, when you’re making threes like we did a couple nights ago, you’re just going to keep making them. But you can’t count on that as a major staple of your offense all the time, regardless of what our game log shows we just made threes. We haven’t had them every game. So we have to score in the paint. Basketball still won in the paint.”
They also needed to play with the same confidence they have had all season.
“Well, one thing we said (is) we need to play with more confidence,” Nessman explained. “We played 27 games, we know what we’re doing. Let’s let’s look like we know we’re doing it because there were maybe some nerves or whatever. We just didn’t play as well as we can. But we had a nice stretch in the third quarter where we really put some things together, executed our offense, got stops, as I mentioned earlier, and you put those together and that’s how you get a working margin in a basketball game.”
It also helped that their scoring weapons led the way in the game. Washington finished with a game-leading 25 points, 4 rebounds, and a blocked shot. He scored 13 points in the first half and made all 12 of his free throws in the game.
“I just wanted to get some easy looks at the rim and they happened to be fouling me today,” Washington said of the second half where he was able to score a bit easier even though the points don’t show it. “So I just had to earn it out the free throw line. So that’s a credit to my team finding me in the post.”
Also scoring in double figures for Justin-Siena was Nick Jeramaz. The senior guard finished with 17 points and 2 rebounds. He was very effective in the second half where he scored 14 points. Jeramaz made 2 of 3 shots from beyond the arc and went 3 of 5 from the line in the game as well.
“Nick’s an all-around basketball player,” Washington said of Jeramaz. “He can do whatever you ask him to do. So today wasn’t his greatest shooting night. He wasn’t shooting 8 for 11 again, but he found ways to get everyone else involved and that’s why he’s such a great player. That’s why he’s first-team all-league. He’s a stud.”
Others scoring in the game for the Braves were Charlie Vaziri (8 points, 6 rebounds), Asa Hightower (6 points, 3 rebounds), and Dylan Arnold (2 points, 4 rebounds).
One of the reasons why McKinleyville (20-12) was able to stay in the game was the play of Flynn Creighton. He finished with a team-high of 20 points on the night. Creighton scored 12 points in the second half and made all 4 free throws in the game.
In the first half, he was making the Panthers offense go by driving the lane and kicking out to a shooter to beat the man-to-man defense. While he still did this in the second half, the adjustment to a zone made it harder for McKinleyville to knock down shots from deep.
“He’s really good at driving,” Nessman said of Creighton. “I mean, he’s really explosively quick off the bounce. off the bounce, He takes good angles, he attacks closeouts well, and we did a poor job of defending him and he’s hard to defend. I don’t want to put it solely on our guys. He’s hard to defend. He went at us and we knew what he was going to do and we still couldn’t stop it. So give him a lot of credit.”
Others scoring for the Panthers were Bode Douglass (9 points), Cole Armstrong (8 points), Justin Wells (6 points), Jordan Brown (5 points), and Nick Maher (2 points).
With the win, Justin-Siena advances to the CIF North Coast Section Division 4 title game on Saturday at 7 pm where they’ll face No. 2 seed Ygancio Valley-Concord (24-7) won over Urban-San Francisco 66-50 in the other semifinal game. The game on Saturday will take place at Napa High. You can view the playoff bracket here.
It will also be a rematch of a semifinal game from last season where Justin-Siena won 71-60. The Braves also come in looking for the elusive section title after coming up just short last season.
“It’s the greatest feeling,” Washington said of a return trip to the section title game. “But all we can think right now is we gotta go win it. Last year, we came up unsuccessful and this year we’re trying to change that.”
