Mustangs win their second game of the season with win over
Alvarez
GILROY — It was a tale of two teams as the Gilroy Mustangs defeated the Alvarez Eagles 57-53 in exciting fashion Friday evening.
“Our game plan was to go out and execute and do our fundamentals,” said bob Ogden, Mustang head coach. “We didn’t do it.”
But Gilroy found their momentum late and fought off many attacks by Alvarez to come away victorious.
Both teams started the game off poorly only scoring 15 points between them in the first quarter; there were 16 total fouls in the same quarter.
Turnovers would also play a huge role, as both teams could not hang on to the ball long enough to mount any kind of a scoring run.
But the Mustangs, who were behind 7-8 going into the second quarter, found their rhythm by adding 21 points while keeping the Eagles to 11.
The defense was led by Junior Jared Gamm who had six boards in the second quarter alone.
The trend carried over in the second half, but Gilroy wasn’t able to keep the momentum and Alvarez was able to cut into the lead. The Mustangs were able to recover from a 10-0 run by the Eagles to keep their nine point lead they had brought into the quarter.
But the damage had been done.
The Eagles were able to find a rhythm that they used to cut into Gilroy’s lead. Halfway through the final quarter, Alvarez had tied the score at 48 all.
That was all that was needed to drive the Mustangs.
Led by Senior Ron Colmon, Gilroy went on a 9-0 run that shot down any hopes for the Eagles.
“We were a little flat going into the second half,” Colmon said. “We just had to get our confidence back. By the end of the third, beginning of the fourth quarters, our shots began to fall and we got out confidence back.”
Colmon came off the bench and led the charge. Under his leadership, the Mustang defense was perfect. Alvarez could not get a clean shot off and could not meet the challenge.
“Ronny came up and showed a lot of promise as a senior leader,” Ogden said.
The Eagles would eventually break the Mustang scoring drive, but it came with 30 seconds left in the game and they had no time left to overcome the deficit.
While he was proud of his team, Ogden had no explanation for why his team performed they way they did.
“It was more exciting than it should have been,” Ogden said. “They had beaten (Alvarez) pretty soundly before, maybe they were thinking about that.”
But the team was able to come through. Having an outstanding game was Coleman who led the Mustang scoring with 20 points and had several key steals and rebounds in the last four minutes. Also playing well was Senior Kyle Loving who finished with eight points.
“The team is still learning,” Ogden said. “We’ve been trying some different things and with some hard work, we will get better.”
