Los Gatos stifles Palo Alto to capture league title
PALO ALTO >> Los Gatos came out on top Tuesday night, in a battle of two defensive-minded teams, defeating host Palo Alto 48-34 to capture the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza Division boys basketball championship.
A significant achievement as both coaches in postgame interviews had plenty to say about what a grind playing in the De Anza Division was, and how it was the best public-school league in the Central Coast Section.
“Winning this league is harder than CCS,” Los Gatos coach Nick Ward said. “In CCS you can get hot at the right time, get some favorable matchups, win three games, you're a CCS champion. Winning this league, you go eight weeks, 12 games against the deepest public-school league in the area. Proud of these guys because this is what we want every year. CCS is just icing on the cake. We're excited. This is the one we wanted.”
There was a good deal of anticipation for this matchup as the two teams went into the game with identical records, tied atop the De Anza standings. But the intense defense both teams played had a wholesale negative impact on anything remotely resembling an offensive flow. After a first quarter that concluded 6-6, Los Gatos managed to score 10 points in the second quarter while holding Palo Alto to two. Thus the score at halftime was 16-8.
“We didn't execute at all in the first half,” Palo Alto coach Jeff Lamere said. “We didn't cut hard, we didn't see what was open. We made some adjustments, hit some shots in the second half, but it wasn't enough because we were too far behind and we couldn't get stops.”
Los Gatos opened it up in the third quarter, taking a 24-10 lead after back-toback 3-pointers by Ronan Chinmulgund and Anthony Martin.
Palo Alto (17-7. 8-4) drew within eight at 26-18, but that was as close as it would get.
Martin scored a gamehigh 13 points for Los Gatos. Scotty Brennan and Osha Moloney had 10 apiece. Chinmulgund had eight and Nolan Koch, the team's leading scorer on the
season, was double-teamed when he got the ball down low, and scored seven.
Jorell Clark led Palo Alto with 11 points and eight rebounds. The 6-3 Brennan drew the defensive assignment against Clark.
“We needed some length, Jorell's such a hard guard,”
Ward said. “Scotty usually gets the toughest assignment on the other team. He's so long, he can change so much with that length.”
With the CCS seeding meeting Wednesday after this publication's print deadline, both teams will most likely be included in
the Division I bracket. But Lamere, after the game, said he thought Los Gatos was worthy of consideration to join the section's elite teams in the Open Division.
“I hear that, it's nice to be
in that conversation, but if you have a couple of hiccups you're not an Open team,” Ward said. “If you're a public-school team you've got to run the table or be 11-1. I think we'll be Division I, one of the top four seeds.”