AmCan soars to win at home vs. Windsor
American Canyon falls behind early, goes on second-quarter run to defeat Windsor
The American Canyon High boys basketball team fell behind 14-5 against Windsor in the first quarter on Tuesday.
Head coach Scott Hayburn called a quick timeout, and the Wolves recovered. Hayburn doesn’t remember exactly what he said during the timeout, but it seemed to work.
American Canyon prevailed over the Jaguars 73-68 in the nonleague contest.
“I wish I remember what I said, but there was a realization that the game wasn’t as easy as
the players thought it would be,” smiled Hayburn, who took over the program from Brett Wedding. “Falling by 10 early might have been the best thing to happen to us because it woke us up.”
A 3-pointer from Maximilian Parmigiani coming out of that timeout spurred a 9-2 spurt to finish the quarter. Seth Tapaoan
hit two big shots, and C.J. Trinidad nailed a 3-pointer to bring the Wolves (2-2) to within 16-15 to end the quarter.
The Wolves led for good after a 22-11 second period. Gabriel Patrick hit the first bucket of the second quarter to give American Canyon the lead, and the junior forward scored eight of his team-high 16 points in the period. He also had three blocked shots for the game.
Senior guard Oliver Aandahl
was hot as well with 10 of his 15 points in the second quarter. In general, the Wolves ran the floor and scored in transition better than the Jaguars.
“I think it was more of the energy. We didn’t have the energy early due to lack of communication on the floor,” said Aandahl, who hit three 3-pointers for the contest. “But once we got on the same page, we got it together and brought our team back.”
Windsor was within 3227 with 2:21 left before halftime, but Parmigiani had a steal and driving layup and Aandahl knocked down a 3 to stretch the lead to 3727
heading into the locker room.
The third quarter was more even, but the Wolves didn’t give up much ground. Windsor looked like it would close to 53-46 after a long ball from Bill Boyle in the final 10 seconds, but the Wolves inbounded and Aandahl hit a frantic running 3-pointer from just past halfcourt to up the lead to 56-46.
“For me, clock awareness is the biggest thing. I just have to know how fast I can get down the court and many seconds I have,” Aandahl said. “But when I shoot the ball, I just try to flick it up there
and give it a little bit of touch. It’s not really like a regular shot.”
Hayburn said there was one negative to the shot going in — his team might have got distracted from the game plan.
“I kind of wish he hadn’t just because it overshadowed what we were trying to do,” he said. “The excitement of a halfcourt shot like that which is worth three points is not something we draw up. It’s not something we can go back to. Certainly, we appreciate the points when we only won by five, but we have to make sure that we manufacture baskets a little
more.”
Windsor (2-3) was forced to foul in the final quarter and the Wolves made just 7 of 15. The Jaguars closed to 69-61 with 1:13 left, but Patrick made an inside shot and E.J. Alviz converted two at the line to help ice the win.
Hayburn is not new to the program. He coached the freshman team for three seasons, the junior varsity team for two years and was an assistant varsity coach for another year.
“When you take over a team that is talented and has the expectations that we do, there’s a lot of pressure,” Hayburn said.
“This program was turned around (by Wedding) and reached some heights that they hadn’t reached before. It’s on my shoulders to take us to that next level.”
Windsor guard Tyler McBratney led the Jaguars with eight of his 16 points in the final quarter. Center Christian Jernigan added 13 points and 11 rebounds. Dante Mendoza also had 13 points.
The American Canyon junior varsity team won 6362 on a shot in the final 10 seconds.