On Saturday the Dons traveled to Campolindo for their rescheduled battle with the Cougars. After many clashes with Campo over the years this one had a melancholy feel as it was the last league game for the many Dons seniors: Jake Davis who has started every available game of his HS career on varsity, Theo Stoll who is one of the NCS leaders in assists, sharpshooter Zubin Acuña, slasher and lockdown defender Jack Bayless, 6th man extraordinaire Colin Norstad, high-energy Landon Santos, and multi-sport stars Justin Zegarowski and Nathan Bennett. Zubin came out firing hitting a 3 for the game’s first points, Theo Stoll got to the line for 2 FT a few trips later and Jake Davis got a putback to power the Dons out of the gate. Campo started out hot from 3 and then turned the spacing and closeouts into driving lanes to maintain a lead most of the first quarter. Acalanes went with the opposite approach, with Theo feeding Jake on consecutive possessions, and then Jack assisting Jake twice late, once as the shot clock was winding down and then after a nice move along the baseline.
Q2 started with a runner from Theo and then he added another drive late in the shot clock for an and 1. Jake scored again on another nice pass from Jack to make it an 8 point game then made 1 of 2 FT. After another Campo 3 the Dons worked a long possession into a skip pass to Zeg who nailed a long 3 of his own. Zeg grabbed a steal from the Cougars as they were trying to get the last shot of the half and kicked it up to Theo who was fouled and made a FT to make it a 10pt game at the half.
It proved to be an exciting halftime as Campo hosted a shootout between teams of students from each school. It was time to “Fear the Blue” as Miller Smith knocked down the first half court shot among the teams to give the Dons a 4-3 win.
As we got back into the official action, Jake put back his own miss to get the second half scoring started and then returned the favor from all the assists Jack hit him with in the first half as Jack cut to rim for 2. The inside scoring for the Dons continued with a nice Zeg reverse and a tough drive from Theo, who followed that up with a 3 next time down. The quarter ended with Jake driving baseline and finishing through some contact.
Jake got a putback to open the scoring in Q4 and got another basket inside on a beautiful feed from Jordan Brown. Theo added a smooth pullup in the lane a few possessions later but Campo continued to get buckets on tough shots and making it impossible for the Dons to cut into the lead. Late in the game Cooper Edelman added a free throw and Nate Bennett got a late basket but ultimately the Dons fell to Campo 68-49. Jake led the Dons with 21, Theo added 15 and Zeg had 5. We now await the results of the NCS seeding on Sunday…stay tuned!
