The Dons (3-5) came into this contest ranked 101st in the MaxPreps San Francisco Metro Rankings (out of 253 teams) while the Valley Christian Warriors (3-1) were 51st. The Warriors scored 80 points or more in three of their prior games so it was going to be imperative the Dons could keep the score much lower to have a good chance at winning.
The Dons got off a good start for the second game in a row so for now we seemed to have solved the “dig ourselves an early hole” affliction we saw several times earlier in the season. The Dons shared the ball well with assists on all five buckets in the first with Maddox Malm scoring 8 in a row including back to back three’s as the Dons were up 12-10.
We were tied at 17 in the second thanks to two Preston Hilsabeck buckets before the Warriors went on a 10-0 run. Cameron Hood slung a beautiful one handed pass to Liam Krackeler for two then Jordan Brown found Ryder Malm for the and-1 and we were in it down 29-24 at the break.
The lead quickly grew to nine before Preston and Maddox hit back to back three’s to cut the lead to two 36-34 midway through the third quarter. The Warriors kept feeding their big man #24 Senior Diego Martinez as Maddox was in foul trouble most of the game and had to be careful. Another Preston corner three and a Malm Brothers connection Maddox to Ryder with the english for two! Next Jordan Brown had a pretty fastbreak look ahead to a streaking Gavin Dodge and it was 44-43 Warriors lead going into the fourth.
The Warriors extended the lead to 7 before Gavin started to assert himself scoring our next three buckets on strong drives and finishes but we couldn’t get stops and were still down 9 with a little over three minutes left. The Dons refused to lay down as Ian Salmon had a nifty righty finish from the left side and Jordan found Gavin in the corner for a three to cut it to 4 with 50 seconds left.
The Dons went into press mode with Gavin getting the steal and Liam finding a cutting Preston for the deuce. Both teams exchanged some free throws but it was 60-57 with 11 seconds left as the Dons inbounded the ball. Gavin brought the ball up court and Ryder came over to set a screen for him outside the three point line. The referee made a very questionable, tough moving screen call with just 5 seconds left and the Dons were unable to get off a game tying three. The final was 62-57.
The Dons shot 41% from the field, 17/35 (49%) on 2FG and 6/21 (29%) on 3FG against 38% for the Warriors on 16/35 (46%) on 2FG and 3/15 (20%) on 3FG. The Dons handled the pressure well all evening winning the turnover battle 13-16 but came up short on the glass 27-43. Huge free throw discrepancy with Dons just 5/9 and the Warriors parading to the line for 21/32! Wow.
Gavin led the way with 17 points on 6/11 shooting in 31 minutes while Preston had 12 points on 5/10 plus 4 rebounds in 18 minutes. Jordan had team highs of 7 assists, 6 rebounds and an even +/- rating in 30 minutes. Maddox added 11 points going 3/5 from deep plus 5 rebounds in 3 assists in 23 minutes before fouling out. Ryder added 5 points and 3 rebounds with a team high 2 blocks including a nice highlight pin on #24 in 20 minutes. For the Warriors, Martinez finished with 23 points, 7 rebounds and 6/6 from the line while #15 had 13 points and 11 rebounds.
Next up for the Dons is a post finals Friday night matchup at Concord 12/22 at 7:30pm. Concord is ranked 204th in the MaxPreps SF Metro Rankings so Dons will be favored in this one. Have a great week everyone and GO DONS!!!
For stats, highlights and more: https://bit.ly/41rFKf0