The Dons opened the season against the Foothill Falcons Tuesday night for the program’s first game under new head coach Bill Powers. The team showed a lot of heart, collecting most of the loose balls, fighting for rebounds, and showing a deep rotation. A driving layup from junior Jack Bayless and 3 straight triples from senior Noah Bloch got the Dons out to an 11-0 run. Junior Jake Davis hit 2 baseline jumpers to stretch the lead to 17-5 as the squad played some stifling defense. A nice dish from sophomore Jordan Brown to junior Colin Norstad finished the scoring for the quarter and Acalanes led 19-10.
Senior Tate Nelson got his first bucket of the season on a drive to open the second quarter scoring. After a stop, junior Zubin Acuna pushed the lead back to 12 with a 3 from the corner. Tate added 2 FT on a 1 and 1 for the teams first of the season. The half ended on a spectacular buzzer beater from junior Theo Stoll to give the Dons a 32-20 lead at half. Overall for the half the Dons showed great effort on D throughout the rotation and hit a nice 3pt percentage.
Noah started the second half scoring with a nice pull up in the lane and Jack pushed the lead to 13 with a FT after a drive. Junior Justin Zegarowski came in to replace Jake after he picked up his third foul and contributed immediately with a sweet lefty layup. Foothill ground back into the game, but freshman Brady Quinn ended the third quarter with another buzzer beater 3 to give the Dons a 46-39 lead going into the final quarter.
Brady made it 5 straight points to start off Q4 with 2 FT after collecting his own rebound. Noah added 2 FT to maintain a 9 point lead and the Dons forced an over and back and added a layup from Jack to get it back to 11 before quickly giving up a 3 and a 2 with Foothill cutting the lead to 6 and forcing an Acalanes timeout. Jake answered a Foothill bucket with an assist from Bayless and Foothill again countered with a 3. Noah continued his strong FT shooting with 2 more to get the lead to 5 with 3 min to play. Jake hit 2 FT off an offensive rebound for a 7pt lead but once again Foothill hit a 3 to stay in contention. Jake pulled down another huge offensive board and hit Jack for a cutting layup to give the Dons the 6 point lead with 50 seconds left. Foothill got a quick 2 and with the shot clock off were forced to foul. Theo hit 1 of 2 for the 5 point lead, Jake shut down the next drive and and Theo sealed it from the line with 2 more FT for the 7 point win. A good 63-56 start to the new season!