The 3-2 Dons faced off against the San Ramon Valley Wolves in a Saturday afternoon non-league special.
The Dons rolled out a new starting lineup consisting of three Freshman Gavin Dodge, Preston Hilsabeck and Josh Elerts along with Sophomore Maddox Malm and Junior Conor Hession.
Gavin opened the scoring with a nice baseline floater followed by a Preston three and some free throws from Preston and Conor to put us up 8-0. Gavin later found Maddox for a three off a nice inbounds play and then added a couple more free throws to put us up 13-7. The Wolves finished the quarter strong and took the lead at one point 13-15 before the Elerts Brothers connected with a bucket at the buzzer to tie us at 15 all.
Sam Bishop got us on the board in the second with a nice drive to the hoop, lefty finish and 1. Nico Ortman followed with a nice one handed lefty pass ahead to JB Frolich to extend the lead to 20-15. The Wolves kept things close and took the lead again before a Maddox to Sam to Drew McKenzie connection led to two more free throws that tied the game at 22 all. JB later had a nice offensive rebound and mid range jumper then found Maddox in the lane for two more as the Dons clung briefly to a two point lead before both teams evened things out at 29 going into the locker room.
SRV came out in the third quarter applying full court pressure. While it didn’t lead to many backcourt turnovers, it frustrated the Dons overall and led to many easy fast break transition buckets. The Dons struggled on the defensive boards as well. Josh had a nice outback to make it 31 all but then SRV started to separate. Gavin kept it close with a pretty spin move layup 33-36. After several transition buckets for SRV, Sam found a cutting Maddox for a high arching rainbow J and Maddox added a three as well to make it 38-49 headed into the final period.
Unfortunately not much to write home about in the fourth. With just minutes to go we only had two points in the quarter before Cole Gwaltney hit a corner 3 for the 43-58 final.
The Dons shot 13/39 (33%) overall, 4/17 from 3 (24%) and much better from the line 14/18 (72%) but had 20 turnovers. Maddox led the way with 11 points while Gavin chipped in 7. Josh had 8 rebounds and Maddox 4. The Dons didn’t have any players in positive +/- territory.
The Dons fall to 3-3 on the season and will face Alameda on Wednesday, December 21st at home at 5:30pm.
To see a recording of the game please go to:https://www.youtube.com/live/ADo9BGmPT68?feature=share
GO DONS!!!!