On Tuesday the Dons hosted their first game in this year’s Chris Huber Classic, facing El Cerrito. There was a great home crowd to cheer on the team…hope to see everyone again! Acalanes got off to a strong start with Jack Bayless slashing for 3 buckets, then Jake adding 10 including a 3 in the quarter and Theo adding a 3 and a driving layup to lead 25-15 after the first.

El Cerrito came out firing in the second half cutting the Dons lead to 4, but some better shots including 2 cutting layups from Noah and strong offensive rebounding across the squad helped the Dons get their footing back, and a 7 point lead at half after a late Noah three, 43-36.

Acalanes started the second half where they left off with Jack converting an and-1 following an offensive rebound and Noah burying another 3 after a stop. Tate Nelson then cashed a fast break to push the Don lead to 15. Two more baskets from Jake and a Tate 3 made it 17. Tyler Murphy got hit first point of the game with a free throw and Theo fired up the bench taking a charge. The scoring slowed later in the half with El Cerrito’s hot shooting keeping them in it, 59-47 at the end of Q3.

The Don shooting started off cold in Q4 but Colin Norstad collected 4 offensive rebounds to add to the chances early, one converted to a Justin Zegarowski banked leaner. A nice pocket pass from Zubin Acuna turned into 2 free throws from Theo, and the sweet passing continued with Jordan Brown feeding Colin for an alley-oop layup to keep the Don lead at 11. Zubin came through with a 3 to get it to 14, but El Cerrito countered with a 3 of their own. A Jack slash and Theo backdoor cut got it back to a comfortable 15 point lead, and a final floater from Theo iced the game 74-59. Top scorers were Jake with 21, Jack with 17 and Theo with 13. The Dons will face the winner of Branson and De Anza Wednesday at 8:00pm, see you there!