Napa Valley jumps out to massive lead early, cruises to easy victory over Mendocino
By Kyle Foster
Twitter/X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Once in a while, a nice easy game is needed. It can also go a long way for a team. It’s helpful to not have to worry about a game for once.
In Thursday night’s Bay Valley Conference game, this is what the Napa Valley College women’s basketball team did as they rolled past Mendocino-Ukiah, 77-36, in a game played at Storm Gym.
Napa Valley (6-9 overall, 2-1 BVC) came out and took control of the game right away. They began the contest by going on a 9-0 run which instantly gave them a fast 15-2 lead in the blink of an eye.
One of the reasons they were able to do this was an excellent game on defense. On that side of the ball, they used their base defense and did a good job of closing out on the shooters.
“I think we rely on our defense a lot,” Napa Valley College head coach Paul DeBolt pointed out. “So it kind of is the thing where we’re focused on stopping teams. We mix up our defenses, where we find stuff that works. We’re still adding looks and new things. There’s some things that we didn’t do tonight that we’ll probably do on Saturday.”
It also helped that the Storm ran their offense to perfection in the game. With that, they also had a pair of scorers who finished the game with 22 points.
“I mean, we just need to get going offensively and get energy,” DeBolt said as to how the fast start was key. “So we had some early energy. Got some steals, (and) some baskets. So that was really important, just to get out to a good start tonight.”
One of those was Rose Jamison. The sophomore finished with a double-double of 22 points and 14 rebounds. She scored 16 points in the first half and made both shots from the free-throw line.
Also finishing with 22 points in the game was Arianna Aguilar. She scored 19 points in the first half and made all 3 shots from the stripe. Aguilar also made a trio of shots from beyond the arc.
Rounding out the trio of double-figure scores was Jazmine Fontilla who scored 17 points and grabbed 9 rebounds. She scored 9 points in the first half and made her lone free throw.
Others scoring for Napa Valley in the game were Ashley Torres (8 points, 3 rebounds, 1 blocked shot), Marticia Pollard (6 points, 9 rebounds), and Deena Sharqawi (2 points, 2 rebounds).
Napa Valley will be back in action on Saturday at 3 pm in Pittsburg when they visit Los Medanos in another BVC game.
