The combination of a fast-paced offense along with an aggressive defense resulted in the Santa Rosa Junior College men’s basketball team’s commanding 82-62 win over Modesto Junior College Tuesday night.
This win was a chance for the Bear Cubs (17-6 overall, 8-3 Big 8) to gain some confidence against a struggling Pirates team (6-17 overall, 2-9 Big 8). With a high-powered offense and active defense, Santa Rosa did just that etching out a comfortable win versus Modesto.
The Bear Cubs got off to a slow start allowing the Pirates to gain a small 5-4 lead early in the first half after committing multiple turnovers, which prompted Santa Rosa’s coach Craig McMillan to call a quick timeout in order to wake his players up. The short break worked and soon after the Bear Cubs went on a 7-0 run led by pesky defense and fast break opportunities to take back the lead.
Santa Rosa dominated much of the first half with its prolific pace of play and ability to jump in Modesto’s passing lanes. This was a problem for the Pirates throughout the game resulting in turnover after turnover.
“We got out in transition, got some fast break points and overall we shot the ball pretty well. We played really hard I thought. We had some defensive lapses, but our intensity made up for those,” McMillan said.
The Bear Cubs went into the half with a 44-25 lead over Modesto.
To start the second half the Pirates came out in a 3-2 zone match up trying to slow down the hot offense of the Bear Cubs and attempting to take away their talented sophomore forward Skylar Chavez, who led the way scoring for Santa Rosa with 20 points and two 3-pointers. With this wrinkle and the help of Modesto’s freshman forward Isaiah Harris, who finished with 17 points, the Pirates cut the deficit to 16.
With the Modesto defense keying in on Chavez, it allowed for other Bear Cubs to step up and make an impact on the game, like sophomore Ryan Perez, who finished with 16 points on the night and hit two 3-pointers to break the Pirates zone defense in the second half.
“People are trying to take Skylar out of the game so much that other people are going to be open. It’s hard to take him out, and everybody else, so those other guys like Ryan have to step up if they’re going to focus on Skylar,” McMillan said.
McMillan also gave some praise to his freshman guard Trey Conrad who finished with 12 points, and also hit a few big 3-pointers.
“He’s been improving, he’s been playing more for us and has been doing a good job,” McMillan said.
Santa Rosa will stay home to take on the Big 8’s second place team Cosumnes River College at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Haehl Pavilion.
