On Tuesday, Nov. 27, intensity filled Redwood’s gym as the boys’ varsity basketball team won against the San Marin Mustangs to begin their season 1-0. The high-scoring opener finished with a Redwood victory, 70-64.
The game started slow and the first quarter came with little action. Redwood and San Marin battled back and forth, with Redwood ending two points down, going into the second with the score 15-13, San Marin. It was clear that San Marin was capable of breaking Redwood’s historically effective press.
The intensity reached a new level in the third quarter with back-to-back scoring from both the Mustangs and Giants. Five minutes into the third, Redwood’s defense slowly fell apart, allowing San Marin to go on a scoring run. San Marin’s streak ended with a collaborative effort by three seniors, who took advantage of a ball in-bounded by San Marin. Immediately after the ball was in-bounded, senior Jake Matthews stole the ball and passed up the court to Farrell-Martin, who passed to senior Brandon Radu in the right corner for a three pointer, closing the score gap to 43-40, San Marin. Solidifying their contributions throughout the game, Radu finished the game with 12 points while Matthews finished with nine.
Going into the fourth quarter, Redwood was down 50-46. The game continued going back and forth until junior Matt Shippey broke the tie, putting Redwood up 56-50 after being fouled at the three point line and making all three free-throws. Shippey says that by working on free-throws every practice and having shot them so many times, they are now second nature.
Following Shippey’s free-throws, Redwood managed to keep a significant lead the rest of the game. Shippey scored a total of 14 points with a 60 percent field goal average.
Although Redwood started off the season with a win, head coach Steve Compagno feels that the team still has work to do, especially when it comes to defense.
“We need to know offsides and our position. We aren’t stopping everybody, we aren’t dictating where we want [the other team] to go. We just did not play very well tonight,” Compagno said.
Radu holds a similar opinion to Compagno’s. Even though he held the second highest point average for the game, he was still upset with how the team handled San Marin’s offensive plays.
“Our defense was s**t. I mean, we let a team have 60 points on us which is pretty embarrassing. We are bigger than them and we are stronger than them, and we let those two little guards dribble around us,” Radu said. Highlighting San Marin’s successes of the game were senior Max Widergren, who led San Marin’s offense with 16 points, and senior Dexter Geraci, who led the team’s defense with three steals.
The varsity boys’ team has their next chance to prove themselves defensively on Thursday, Nov. 29, when they play Piedmont at home.