The JV Dons faced off against the Clayton Valley Charter Ugly Eagles (17-6 overall, 7-2 in league) Thursday night in beautiful Lafayette. The earlier matchup was an overtime thriller that the Eagles prevailed in 54-52 so this was an anxiously awaited rematch.
The Dons rolled out a starting lineup of the Freshman trio of Preston Hilsabeck, Gavin Dodge, and Josh Elerts along with Sophomores JB Frolich and very welcome new addition Matthew Bacon on a G-League rehab assignment of sorts coming off a knee injury sustained in the off-season. Regular starter Maddox Malm was, unfortunately, out with a hyperextended knee and will be re-evaluated today.
Gavin opened the scoring with a triple, then corralled a loose ball to find Josh underneath for the score to put us up 5-3. The Eagles, hungry and coming off a tough first-place battle that they lost at Campolindo earlier in the week, answered by scoring the next seven points. Josh, who had 10 points in the half, had a nice take inside for two. Sam Bishop found Gavin as the Dons surged back into the lead 11-10. Matthew looked a little rusty at first but was starting to settle in, grabbing boards and finally cracking the seal with his first bucket later in the quarter. Josh scored again inside but missed the free throw on the and-1 and then found Alex for a bucket to go up 17-14. The Eagles added two on a putback at the buzzer and we clung to a 1-point advantage, 17-16.
The Eagles scored the first four points to take the lead again before Josh hit two from the stripe. Matthew then started to flex with an offensive rebound and putback, then a huge block on D, an assist to Conor Hession for two, and another finish with a missed and-1 opportunity at the line. Gavin stroked a deep 3 as the shot clock expired to put us up 28-27. The Eagles scored on another jumper at the buzzer to steal the lead back going into the break.
The Eagles started the quarter on another run extending the lead to 5. JB split a pair of free throws and Gavin found Preston for a baseline J but the deficit ballooned to 12 at one point. The Dons clawed back as Matthew scored again and Alex found Preston with a nice pass from the backcourt to underneath the hoop for a sweet reverse layup. Then Drew McKenzie found a cutting Gavin for two and Conor had a pretty baseline drive as we were back in business only down 4, 39-43. Another strong end of quarter Eagle finish put them up 7 going into the fourth, 39-46.
Conor found Drew for a bucket and then Gavin found him for another as the big man had a strong showing in this one. After Sam split a pair from the line we were still down 6 though with about 5 minutes to play. Not much scoring after that but their lead eventually grew to nine before JB found Gavin for another triple to cut it to 6 with just over a minute left but that’s the closest we could get as the sand ran out of the hourglass for the Dons. The final ended up being 49-55 after a Gavin follow up lay-in as time expired.
As a team the Dons shot 18/30 (60%) from 2FG, 3/15 (20%) on 3FG, 21/45 (47%) overall and 4/11 (36%) from the line to go along with 28 rebounds, 11 assists and 17 turnovers.
Gavin led the way playing 28 minutes scoring 17 points on 7/11 shooting and 3/5 from deep plus 5 boards, 3 assists and a team high player efficiency rating of +20. Josh played 20 minutes and had 10 points plus 5 boards. Matthew added 8 points and 6 rebounds in 20 minutes.
The Dons fall to 8-9 overall and 4-4 in league play. Next up is Saturday late afternoon special at Las Lomas on 2/4 at 5:30pm and then a triple-header next week to end the season. All road games against Northgate on Tuesday 2/7, Miramonte on Thursday 2/9 and the grand finale against rival Campolindo on Saturday 2/11.
Thank you all for your support and GO DONS!!!!
