Happy New Year Everyone! After going 1-2 over the Holidays, the Dons JV Boys squad came into this contest with a 4-5 overall preseason record facing off against the 8-6 Las Lomas Knights in a Friday night evening contest at Chris Huber Gymnasium in Lafayette.
The Dons rolled out a starting lineup featuring Sophomores JB Frolich and Drew McKenzie along with the Freshman Trio of Gavin Dodge, Preston Hilsabeck, and Josh Elerts. Gavin struck first right off the tip with a wide open three on the assist from Preston. JB added a nice block and split free throws on two consecutive drives. Drew added two more from the line and Gavin found Josh off our favorite inbounds play for a score down low as we were rolling 9-0! Jake and Gavin each added another three and Sam Bishop had a nice steal and assist to Gavin as well. The Dons were perfect from deep at 3/3 and 6/8 from the charity stripe in the period holding a 21-12 lead going into the second.
Things started to tighten up in the second as we were held to only two Conor Hession free throws for most of the quarter. It got to 23 all with a few minutes left and then the Knights surged ahead by six at one point before Alex Butler added two free throws and Josh one more to get us back within 3 at 26-29 going into the locker room. We shot 3/15 on 2FG (20%), 3/5 (60%) on 3FG, 6/29 FG (30%), and 11/17 from the line (65%) in the half along with 19 rebounds, 4 assists, and 8 turnovers.
Josh put us on the board to start the second half closing the gap to 1 for a brief moment before the Knights’ outstanding Freshman Aiden Williams (#5) went off hitting back to back three’s and another bucket that put Las Lomas up 10 at one point 31-41. During that outburst, Josh had a sick block that led to another brother Jake three. With their backs suddenly against the wall, the Dons fought back hard! JB found Conor for a nice three, Gavin added another bucket, then Josh found JB for a nice drive off our favorite inbounds play again and JB found Jake for one last bucket to get us to within one heading into the final stanza 40-41.
Gavin drilled a deep top of the key three on the first play of the quarter to give the Dons their first lead since early in the second quarter at 43-41. Las Lomas countered with a nice pick and roll play to their big man to tie it at 43 all. Alex, who mixed it up all night, had a huge rebound and strong finish inside to go up 2 and Josh made a key save to JB with a slick lefty finish off the glass to go up 47-43. The Knights answered again with Aiden getting fouled by Conor on a three and nailing all three to tie the game at 47. Gavin scored on a clutch drive to get the lead back and then iced two free throws to put us back up 51-47 with 1:20 left. JB then found Jake to put us up 6 but Las Lomas wasn’t going to go quietly. Aiden hit another three, his fourth on the evening, to make the score 53-50. Josh was fouled and went to the line, where he uncharacteristically struggled all night 3/9 (33%), and missed the front end of the one-and-one. Las Lomas got the rebound and called time with 6 seconds left. In what ended up being a brilliant move, Coach Jones elected to foul on purpose, putting the Knights on the line for their own one-and-one. The first one clanked off the rim and JB secured it with 0.9 left on the clock. He buried the first putting the game completely out of reach and the final was 54-50.
As a team we shot 11/32 (34%) on 2FG, 6/13 (46%) on 3FG, 17/45 (38%) overall and 14/24 (58%) from the line along with 36 rebounds, 6 assists and 14 turnovers. Gavin was clearly the “Man of the Match” in a stunning overall performance and a shiner to boot, playing almost the entire game and putting up 17 points on 3/4 from three along with 7 boards. The Elerts Bros. also made a strong contribution with Josh adding 9 points and 10 rebounds along with his trademark energy and Jake putting up 10 points with 2 big three’s and a team high +/- and +10. Aiden #5 finished with20 points for the Knights.
The Dons move to 5-5 on the season and more importantly 1-0 in league play. Two games on the road next week. The first is Monday 1/9 at College Park at 5:30pm and Friday 1/13 at Clayton Valley Charter at 5:30pm. Please come out to support this hard working crew! Enjoy the weekend everyone and GO DONS!!!!
