Justin-Siena’s run to open up fourth quarter leads them past Casa Grande in key early league season contest

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By Kyle Foster

kfost91197@gmail.com

Twitter/X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews

There are always a few teams where the record is deceiving. This can be scary because some teams simply don’t match their record for a variety of reasons. 

On Saturday night at Clark Gym, the Justin-Siena boys basketball team proved they are a force as they beat the defending Vine Valley Athletic League champion Casa Grande-Petaluma, 55-40, in a very important league game. 

The Braves (8-6, 2-0 VVAL) pulled away in the fourth quarter with a 9-0 run to give them a commanding 51-35 advantage. During this period, Justin-Siena was playing intense, hounding defense to make the Gauchos uncomfortable. 

“We came out with a little bit more intensity,” Justin-Siena head coach Corey Battle explained of the fourth-quarter defense. “Defense was key to the fourth quarter period, and that’s kind of the key to our team.” 

In the second quarter, the Braves gained their first lead when they went on a 6-0 run to bring the score to 24-16. This charge was again led by strong play on defense. Justin-Siena also limited defending league MVP David Isola in the contest.  

“Their main guy, Isola, we tried to stay on him,” Justin-Siena senior guard Antoine Saleh said. “ He’s a pretty good player, shooting from very far. So we got our main guy, Asa, a great defender, he was doing good, and then the other players weren’t really doing much. So we tried to help over on Isola and do all we could, and that helped us get stops, and then also our press towards the end of the game, I feel like it definitely affected them, caused multiple turnovers.” 

Another key in the contest was that Justin-Siena was led by Saleh. He finished with a game-leading 21 points and 4 rebounds. Saleh was a force in the first half, where he scored 13 points. He also made 6 of 7 free throws in the contest. 

“He is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever had in my 20 years of coaching,” Battle said of Saleh. “He does not get tired.  He is first in sprints. He is one of the hardest workers in the weight room, and it shows on the court when he plays. If anything, he just gets too emotional sometimes, but he’s been a joy to coach this year. He’s helped us out. He’s brought us to the level that we’re at right now. He’s a big contributor to the level that we’re playing at right now and where we’ve been playing at all year.” 

Also in double figures for the Braves was senior Asa Hightower. He finished with 10 points and 3 rebounds. The fourth-year varsity player scored 6 points in the first half and made all 4 of his shots from the free-throw line. 

“He’s really good,” Saleh added. “He’s a great defender every game, guarding the best guy, and it definitely makes an impact. He shuts down the best guy every game, and so it’s just definitely a blessing to have him, and he’s definitely the energy we need. He gets big plays, big rebounds, and in the post, I feel like nobody can guard him.” 

Others scoring in the game for Justin-Siena were Alejandro Perryman (9 points, 3 rebounds), Greyson Wong (7 points, 1 rebound), Dylan Arnold (3 points, 6 rebounds), Adam Nahmias (3 points, 1 rebound), and Xiano Ortega (3 points, 8 rebounds, blocked shot).

Like last season, the Braves didn’t play a home game in the first few months of the year. The reasoning behind this was to load up a monster non-league slate to get ready for league play. During this time, they learned a lot about themselves when playing some of the top teams in Northern California.  In doing so, they had a bit of a deceiving record coming into league play. 

“At the end of the day, we just learned, you put a ball out there, (and) we could play with you,” Battle pointed out. “That’s the thing I told the guys, like I told our team yesterday, we’re not built to beat people by 30,40 points. We’re not built that way, but we have all the pieces capable of winning a basketball game, and that’s what we kind of focus on.” 

Justin-Siena will be back in action on Tuesday at 7 pm when they host Vintage in the Battle of Trower.  

Other VVAL games on Saturday saw Vintage beat Petaluma 55-51 and Sonoma Valley beat American Canyon 53-52.