Senior guard nets team-high 15 points in 55-46 loss to Live
Oak.
GILROY – Senior guard Ron Colmon heaved the ball from beyond halfcourt – sinking a three-pointer at the buzzer to end the third quarter.
On another day in a different game, it might have meant something. But in Tuesday’s 55-46 home loss to rival Live Oak, Colmon’s Harlem Globtrotter trick shot just gave the Gilroy fans a little something to cheer about.
“He’s peaking the last couple of games,” said head coach Baumgartner, distraught with the outcome but satisfied with Colmon’s effort. “He’s been a spark off the bench – creating with his defense and creating opportunities offensively. He’s starting to get more playing time because of it.”
In a game where nothing seemed to fall for the Mustangs, Colmon was the one bright spot – finishing with a team-high 15 points. Of Gilroy’s 11 points in the third quarter, Colmon scored nine and assisted on the other bucket to teammate Blair Wortham.
“I think the first thing is it was just an offnight for us. There’s nothing you can do about it. You just have to expect those games that you have offnights and you just have to deal with it and you’ve got to keep battling,” Colmon said. “That’s what I was trying to do. I was trying to keep everyone up and keep us battling.”
Colmon kept Gilroy afloat in the third quarter. While his teammates struggled – failing to add to their dismal 13-point halftime total for the opening four minutes of the second half – Colmon caught fire. Following a jumper with 3:43 left to break the scoring drought, Colmon drained a high-arcing jump shot. Then he drove to the lane, drew the defense, and dished to Wortham for an open lay-in. Colmon continued with a long rebound into a transition lay–up and then finished the quarter with his long distance trey.
“Coach has been telling me lately that my defense is something that pumps the team up,” Colmon said. “So what I’m trying to is take my defense and basically turn it into an offense – where if I get steals, it creates easy buckets for our team.”
Since the starters and regular back-up rotation was not working, Baumgartner went with Colmon and senior Josh Gravell along with seldom-used reserves Ben Hemeon, Kyle Warren and Wortham.
“They cut into the lead just because they became a threat. I put Ben Hemeon in there who hasn’t played very much this year and I told him just to be a threat,” Baumgartner said. “He touched the basketball. He creates something. He gets a couple of shots off. That’s all I ask them to do because our first unit was not doing that.”
In the fourth quarter, Gilroy sank four three-pointers – one from senior Erik Tollison (nine points), one from Gravell and one from senior Brandt Chacon. The game was out of reach though.
“We played scared in the second half offensively. Defensively, we battled real well and we played hard. But offensively we were scared,” said Baumgartner, whose height-deficient group faced three Live Oak players six-foot-eight and above. “You have to be able to pull up and take that medium range jump shot and we weren’t doing that.”
The Mustangs (0-5 in T-CAL) will look for their first league win on the road Feb. 6 against first-place Salinas – which topped North Salinas by a score of 69-61 last night.
“It’s always been what coach said, we’re not playing for four quarters. We come out either in the first half and we play two good quarters or we’ll come out in the second half and we’ll play two good quarters,” Colmon said. “Until we can play a complete game, that’s when we’ll get our first (league) win.”
In the other T-CAL match-up last night, second-place Hollister outlasted Palma, 54-47 to stay right on Live Oak’s heals.
“Our league is much tougher this year just because you’ve really got three teams (Hollister, Live Oak, Salinas) who are playing extremely well,” said Baumgartner, whose squad won a share of the MBL title last season, “and you’ve still got North Salinas who is athletic as anybody else around in CCS, and then you’ve got us who play hard and will surprise a few teams.”
