Casa Grande takes advantage of turnovers, uses a second quarter run to beat Vintage on Senior Night
By Kyle Foster
Twitter/X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
When you’re in a winnable game, you have to take care of the basketball. Turnovers always come back to hurt you no matter the level.
In Saturday’s Vine Valley Athletic League regular-season finale, Casa Grande-Petaluma beat Vintage, 57-36, in a game played at Crusher Gym.
The Gauchos (5-20 overall, 4-8 VVAL) took control of the game in the second quarter when they outscored Vintage 22-7. In this period, Casa Grande went on a 8-0 run to get their first double-digit lead in the game at 21-8 midway through the second quarter.
Casa Grande did all of this by taking advantage of turnovers every time down the court.
“Lots of turnovers,” Vintage first-year head coach Hannah Newman pointed out. “We talk as a team a lot that we struggle on offense, right? I feel like that’s been our weak point this season, is that we just have a hard time getting the basketball to go in the hoop, and so it’s just tough.”
It also helped that the Gauchos were able to take advantage of the good looks that they got all game long, which is how they extended and maintained the lead.
Vintage (8-17, 3-9 VVAL) played much better in the second half when it was more aggressive on offense.
The main beneficiary of this was senior Lauren Gerenser who finished with a team-leading 13 points and 2 rebounds. She also scored 12 points in the second half on 4 shots from deep. Gerenser was 1 of 2 from the line as well.
“She’s been struggling a little bit with her shot this year, and so it just kind of felt fitting that it finally, like clicked for tonight, on her senior night,” Newman said of the oldest Gerenser’s game. “I talked to her at halftime that it’s a new half of basketball and she’s just gonna have to play through it. I’m glad she did because her shot got to go for and it’s pretty special.”
Also getting better in the second half by being aggressive was Ashley Gerenser. The freshman finished with 8 points and 4 rebounds. She scored 4 points in each half and made 2 of 4 shots at the free-throw line.
Others scoring for the Crushers in the game were Aranza Aguilar Loera (4 points, 3 rebounds), Viviana Mitre (4 points), Caely Diskin (2 points, 5 rebounds), Brooklyn Perez (2 points, 2 rebounds), Sydney Morton (2 points, 2 rebounds), and Madelyn Alvarez (1 point, 2 rebounds).
Before the game, Vintage honored their three seniors as part of Senior Night. Those honored were Lauren Gerenser, Diskin, and Mitre. All have been a huge part of the team and given a lot to the program.
“All three seniors have their own skill set,” Newman explained. “ Every single one of them brings something different to the table. I just feel really grateful to have been able to coach them, be a part of their lives the past three years.”
With this result, Vintage earned the No. 6 seed in next week’s VVAL basketball tournament and will travel to No. 3 seed Sonoma Valley on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. In the two meetings this season, Sonoma won both, beating Vintage 57-33 on January 7th and 53-21 on January 27th.
The other first-round games will see No. 7 Napa visit No. 2 seed American Canyon on Tuesday at 5:30 pm and No. 5 Casa Grande visit No. 4 Petaluma on Tuesday at 7 pm. The lowest remaining seed will visit top-seeded and back-to-back VVAL Justin-Siena on Thursday at 7 pm in the semifinals.
In other league games on Saturday, Justin-Siena beat American Canyon 44-36, and Sonoma Valley beat Napa 61-17.
