Gavilan’s two victories as season starts equals last year’s total
Despite being outsized and out gunned, the Gavilan College men’s basketball team made a game of it Saturday night against West Hills and got within four points of the lead with 15 minutes to play before ultimately succumbing 77-61 to the Falcons.
“We played pretty well and were in it for the first 30 minutes,” said Ram Coach Chris Shoemaker. “We missed successive free throws that would have tied the game late and they answered with a three pointer that got things out of reach. Eventually, we had to start fouling, but the game was much closer than the score.”
With the victory, the Falcons improved their record to 3-3. The Rams slipped to 2-5- a mark that already matches their total wins from a year ago when they finished with a record of 2-25.
“We don’t want to get too caught up in what happened last year,” said Shoemaker. “We definitely have a chance to be better if we work on continuing to improve. I’m not happy with losses, but I’m happy with our effort so far.”
This weekend, the Rams are in Monterey playing in the Monterey Peninsula College Tournament.
The double-elimination event runs through Saturday. Friday the Rams tipped off against Sierra and they are slated to play either Monterey or Los Medanos in the second round of the event Saturday.
“We know we can play with Los Medanos even though we lost to them earlier this year and Monterey has struggled,” said Shoemaker prior to the tournament.
After heading home from Monterey this weekend, the Rams will take to the court again on Dec. 11 at home against the College of the Siskiyous.
“They’re 7-1 and ranked No. 3 in Northern California,” said Shoemaker. “We’ll have our work cut out for us that night.”
Against West Hills last Saturday night, the Rams showed a great deal of tenacity. Trailing by as many as 13 points in the first half, the Rams managed to cut the lead to 38-29 by halftime.
In the second half, it looked as though their comeback attempt may be successful when Jimmy Herrera nailed a three-pointer early on that cut the score to 43-39.
For the night, Herrera had 13 points to lead all Gavilan scorers.
“He just did a really good job controlling the tempo of the game,” said Shoemaker.
Unfortunately, Herrera’s clutch shot was not enough for the Rams. Yet Gavilan still battled hard for the remainder of the game and got within seven points with four minutes to play.
“We played well but they were considerably bigger at every position,” said Shoemaker. “Eventually, that became a factor. We don’t have a single player over 6-foot-4 and that’s pretty small for college.”
In addition to the solid effort by Herrera, Maurice Davis and Jody McAlpine each scored 12 points for the Rams.
