GV clinches playoff spot by containing Ricks, Atwater

The 2015-2016 season was a brutal one the Golden Valley boys basketball team.

Head coach Keith Hunter found himself questioning his coaching future after the Cougars turned in a winless Central California Conference campaign for the first time in school history. And most of the contests weren’t particularly close.

It made Wednesday night’s 62-51 playoff-clinching victory over Atwater at the Nest all the sweeter as Hunter reflected on what a difference a year can make.

“For me, tonight was a powerful road win,” Hunter said. “We haven’t been very good on the road. It wasn’t our best performance, but we followed the game plan that we needed to in order to get a win.

“Last year was not fun for anybody, so to come back this season and make the playoffs is very meaningful. I’m not going to lie. Our goal was worst to first, but sometimes when you shoot for the stars you come up a little short of the ultimate goal. We achieved something significant tonight with good, solid team play.”

The Cougars (12-13, 7-4 CCC) got it done by accomplishing something few have in league play, slowing down senior Reggie Ricks.

The Atwater guard came out firing in a game the Falcons (12-12, 4-6 CCC) had to have to keep their postseason hopes alive, stepping behind a screen to drill a 3 for the game’s first points. Ricks (12 points, six assists) had six points and three assists at the end of the first quarter to help Atwater build a 17-13 lead after one.

He had just six points the rest of the way as GV switched to a trapping, full-court defense with the sole purpose of getting the ball out of his hands.

“(Ricks) is the best one-on-one player in the entire league,” Hunter said. “It showed the few times we were late with our trap. Our goal was to keep two guys on him for as much of the evening as we could, trying to force the ball out of his hand and then make it as difficult as possible for him to get it back.

“Sylvestre Llamas and August Tangaan were the two main guys who drew the double-team role, and they did a great job. The idea was to make someone else beat us.”

The Cougars were equally effective at executing their offensive game plan, pounding the ball inside to Cyrus Allen (game-high 17 points, 17 rebounds, three blocks) and Etrell Bowers (seven points). When Atwater attempted to clamp down, the duo kicked out to Isaac Cropper (16 points) and Llamas (11) around the perimeter.

The simple formula helped Golden Valley take control of the game with an 8-0 run midway through the second quarter, taking a 23-19 lead on back-to-back buckets by Bowers. It extended to a 19-4 run as the Cougars took a comfortable 34-23 lead into the break.

“Coming in, we knew we needed to feed off of each other’s energy on the road,” Cropper said. “We have struggled on the road, so when we started having success with our traps, everybody really fed off of it. Good traps create more energy. Energy leads to buckets and buckets lead to wins.”

With Ricks struggling, Saul Avitia (team-high 13 points) and Fernando Jeronimo (eight) did their best to pick up the scoring slack after the break, but Atwater never got closer than seven points the rest of the way.

“They did a great job of executing their plan,” Falcons coach Jason Boesch said. “I thought there were some chances there to take advantage of it, but we weren’t able to. They wore us out. The end of the first half was just a turnover fest. We made lazy, dumb, tired turnovers and it’s because their pressure had us tired.

“I think we got the lead down to six or seven at one point, but every time we got a little momentum, they answered with a big basket. From what I saw tonight, GV is a team just playing good basketball right now.”

This story was originally published February 8, 2017 at 11:04 PM with the headline "GV clinches playoff spot by containing Ricks, Atwater."