On Tuesday the Dons hosted the Campolindo Cougars in front of, unsurprisingly, our biggest crowd of the season. Many of the members of these two squads played years of LMYA, CYO, AAU and now High School hoops with and against each other and it is always a great battle among friends. The game started out at blistering pace with Jake Davis scoring inside to open the game, Theo Stoll getting to the line for 2 FT, and Theo, Zubin Acuna, and Justin Zegarowski all hitting 3s early. Zubin added another 3 later and Jake got 2 baskets including an and 1 to give the Dons a 10 point lead early. Campo found their legs late in the quarter to get it back to 6 at the break.
Zubin opened the Q2 scoring with another bomb, but Campo used a steady dose of dribble drives to keep it close. Campo got it back to a 24-24 tie half way through the quarter, when Jordan Brown stopped the run with a 3 late in the shot clock to go back on top. The very hot shooting for the Dons continued with Jack Bayless adding one from the wing. Jack also got a layup on a nice cut and feed from Jake inside, and Zuuuubin got the crowd to their feet draining another one from the corner on a nice pass along the baseline, again from Jake. Theo hit the Dons big man with a dime for another and 1 late in the quarter for a 9 point lead but Campo hit a buzzer beater to cut it to 6 at the half. The atmosphere continued to be electric with the two loud student sections. The coaches’ strategies were clear as well, Acalanes was going to try and dominate inside and hit threes, while Campo was going to spread the floor and play iso ball…both were going according to plan in the first half.
Campo came out in a press early and it was effective leading to a 3 after a made FT for a 4 point swing and forcing a timeout from Coach Powers. The Campo players must have gotten an earful at halftime as they had much more effort on defense while the Dons shooting cooled off and the Cougars got the first 12 points of the quarter to make it a 6 point lead. Acalanes got on the board finally with a nice pass from Brady Quinn in to Jake who completed the and 1. After a stop, they came back to Jake again who drove and tipped in his own miss for 2.
After stringing together another stop, Zuuubin hit a huge 3 from the wing. More good D got the Dons the ball back and Zubin made them pay with a bomb from just in front of the student section who went WILD. That score held for a 49-46 lead at the break It was a great bounce back run from the Dons to regain control of the game after the Cougars pounced to take the lead earlier in the quarter.
Campo got 2 layups to start Q4 and take a little momentum away from they home crowd, but the Dons got it right back with Jake passing out of a double team to Brady for a corner 3. Jake lined up a 3 of his own from the wing to give all the starters a 3 in the game and came back with a bucket inside for a 5 point Dons lead. Campo fought back to make it 57-57 with 3 to play and the tension was palpable and both crowds were roaring. Theo calmly added 2 FT, to make it a 59-57 game but a series of Dons turnovers led to a 59-64 Campo lead. The Dons managed a late layup from Brady to make it a 61-64 final score in the Dons best showing in the rivalry in many years. Jake led the scoring with 20, and Zubin was the other Don in double figures with 18 while Theo added 9. The Dons will next face College Park at home on Saturday at 7pm and would love to see the kind of crowd support they got for this game!
