Defense, Stewart come up big for Merced boys basketball
Hector Nava knows there’s going to be days his Merced boys basketball team has to grind it out.
The Bears have a roster of streaky shooters, and with a good portion of the team still finding their shooting legs after football season, there’s going to be some rough offensive evenings early.
But even on their worst shooting nights, the coach knows the Bears can rely on their defense to keep things competitive. It was at the forefront of Tuesday night’s 49-43 victory over Pacheco. The Bears struggled from the field (18 for 57), but scored enough transition buckets from 26 forced turnovers to pull out the nonconference win at Clemons Court.
“It was definitely tough tonight,” Nava said. “Pacheco did a great job of switching defenses on us at pretty much every stoppage, so our kids were off balance all night.
“Just about every timeout conversation ended with a set to attack the basket, but you have to give Pacheco credit. They were quick and did a great job filling the gaps.”
After a few years of getting outgunned in shootouts, Panthers coach Tyrell Jenkins said his squad entered the season with a new defensive emphasis. It showed as Pacheco used its quickness to make things difficult for Merced’s shooters.
The exception was shooting guard AJ Stewart. The junior came off of the bench to give the Bears (6-3) an instant boost, scoring all 10 of Merced’s points in the opening quarter to give the Bears a one-point lead.
Juwan Epperson answered with some energy of his own off of the bench for the Panthers (3-3). After sitting most of the first quarter with foul trouble, Epperson struck for seven of his team-high 16 points in the second quarter. The senior got the Pacheco transition game going with three of his game-high six steals to spark a 9-1 run and put the Panthers up 18-15 at the break.
The Merced defense took over after intermission. Pacheco turned the ball over 16 times in the second half and Stewart began getting easy looks on the break. He scored 19 of his game-high 30 points after the break and his dunk with 57 seconds left in the game sealed the win.
“They definitely made things difficult for us by switching defenses back and forth,” Stewart said. “Each time it took us a little while to adjust, but we kept after it. We pushed the ball when we had the chance and slowed things down when we needed to.”
Pacheco had its chance, forcing five consecutive Merced turnovers to open the fourth quarter. The Panthers could only hit three shots from the field, however, as the Bears pulled away.
“Our offense failed us a little bit tonight with our press break,” Jenkins said. “We just couldn’t get the ball past half court consistently in the second half. I thought our defense played great, but we didn’t take advantage of it.”
This story was originally published December 16, 2014 at 10:33 PM with the headline "Defense, Stewart come up big for Merced boys basketball."