GILROY—Gunderson handed Gilroy its first lost of the season and unfortunately for the Mustangs, it was in the Mustang Classic Tournament Championship game.
The Grizzlies capitalized on Gilroy turnovers throughout the game to come away with a 56-19 win Saturday to clinch the tournament crown. Gilroy took second place after beating Harbor and Notre Dame in the first two rounds.
Gilroy coach Mitchell Pierce said he didn’t want his team to be discouraged following the loss, instead he said it should use it as a learning experience.
“When you don’t work together, you lose big. I think that’s what this game pretty much told us,” he said. “We didn’t run a play until the fourth quarter and to be honest, I’m not even sure we ran that play the entire way through. When you execute and you do the things that you practice, you give yourselves opportunities … Hopefully we’ll learn from this and we’ll be back to compete in another game.”
Gunderson attacked the basket right out of the gate and took a 13-2 lead at the end of the first from which the Mustangs never recovered. Andrea Gracia grabbed a rebound and put-back early in the first to cut the Grizzlies’ lead to 4-2, but that’s as close as Gilroy would get for the remainder of the game.
“I thought it was a tough game. We needed to run our plays and we needed to work together. We have chemistry, but we need to develop it. I think that with time it’ll come,” Gracia said. “They (the Grizzlies) had bigs in the bottom and they had shooting guards. They had chemistry. They’re just a solid team.”
The Grizzlies defense created several turnovers, intercepting numerous passes from the Mustangs in the game to effectively shut down their offense.
Gilroy was silenced until 6:30 in the second quarter when Gracia found the basket again for her team. She led the Mustangs with six points and three rebounds and was named to the All-Tournament team along with teammate Adina Valencia.
Valencia posted three points, three rebounds and an assist for Gilroy against Gunderson.
“It’s cool. I felt like to deserve this I could’ve put in more effort, more hard work, but I’m happy to receive this,” Valencia said of the honor.
Gilroy’s defense struggled all night, but found success in the third quarter. It held the Grizzlies to just six points in that frame, thanks in part to an aggressive attack by sophomore Maddy Cox. She had six rebounds, three steals and an assist in the game as well as a big block towards the end of the third quarter which helped slow down Gunderson.
Cox also scored two points for the Mustangs.
Nia Pollard also put force a nice effort on both sides of the ball, picking up four rebounds and four assists in addition to a steal. Sarah Weiby—who came off the bench in the tournament opener against Harbor—earned her spot in the starting lineup and capitalized on it. She led the team in rebounds with seven and in addition to scoring two points.
Gunderson’s Danielle Gezzi gave the Mustangs trouble all night, racking up 19 points—including a 3-pointer. Mia Medina knocked down two 3-point shots for the Grizzlies and finished with 10 in the game.
The Mustangs (3-1) will be back in action to host Greenfield at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday but before then Pierce said they have some things to work on.
“It just boiled down to making lay-ups and making simple shots and working together. I think you have these games and so we’re just going to get back to practice and work on the things we need to work on and get better,” he said. “I think it’s just execution. I don’t mean to mean to sound cliché, but we just need to execute. I think when we do that we give ourselves a chance. We just need to do the simple things.”
