Golden Valley goes cold in second half in loss to Merced

Points haven’t come easily for the Golden Valley High boys basketball team this season. The Cougars have been plagued by long scoring droughts, and recently, many of those stretches have come in the second half.

The trend continued Friday night against Merced as the Bears opened the third quarter with a 10-0 run that helped propel them to a 46-40 win on Vince Clemons Court.

“We’re challenged offensively,” said Golden Valley coach Keith Hunter, whose team dropped to 3-19 overall and 0-5 in the Central California Conference. “We struggle to put 50 points on the board every single night. The problem is we’re challenged in other areas, too. We’d like to get in practice and shoot a lot, but we have to work on other things too.”

The Cougars battled Merced in a rugged first half as Cyrus Allen came off the bench to score seven points and give Golden Valley a 23-22 lead at intermission. The Bears trailed despite 18 first-half points from A.J. Stewart.

Stewart helped the Bears surge in front in the third quarter, however.

Two nights after his controversial three-pointer helped Merced defeat Atwater, Jacob Busko left no doubt on a three from the corner to open the second half. Stewart followed with a three-pointer and followed with a putback and fastbreak layup to give the Bears a 32-23 lead with 3:19 left in the third quarter.

Golden Valley, meanwhile, opened the second half missing its first seven shots and made just 2 of 10 shots from the floor in the third quarter.

“We came out of the locker room and give up a 10-0 run,” Hunter said. “Two of the possessions were second-shot opportunities. One of them we had two guys there against one and the one guy comes away with the rebound. That kills me. We have to be tougher.”

Golden Valley answered the run with six consecutive points to cut its deficit to 32-29, but the Cougars lost Allen to a fifth foul with 2:41 left in the third quarter.

Jared Pazin (11 points) helped Merced stretch its lead out to 37-29 at the end of the third quarter with a basket in the lane and a three-pointer with two seconds left.

“That was great,” said Stewart, who was temporarily sidelined near the end of the quarter because of an injured ankle. “We needed that. I was worried we weren’t going to be able to finish and they finished strong.”

A Stewart basket pushed Merced’s lead back to 10, making it 42-32 with 6:16 left. The Cougars cut their deficit to 42-38 with 1:39 left, but Stewart and Pazin put the game away at the free-throw line.

Stewart finished with 29 points and 14 rebounds.

“I thought A.J. did a great job of taking a direct line to the basket,” Merced coach Hector Nava said. “I have a lot of guys who have good handles, they can dribble the ball, but we don’t always use it in a positive way. I thought A.J. did that tonight.”

Golden Valley was led by Devon Martinez’s 14 points.

After losing its first three CCC games, Merced finished the first round of conference play 2-3. The Bears sit in fourth place, one game behind Buhach Colony for the third and final playoff spot with five games left.

“We’re still in the running for the playoffs,” Stewart said. “Coach Nava talks about still finishing in second. I don’t think we can still get first, but second would be good.”

This story was originally published January 22, 2016 at 11:36 PM with the headline "Golden Valley goes cold in second half in loss to Merced."