After an exciting 2017 season, which included a trip to the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Division VI Semifinals and the CIF state tournament, Foothill boys’ basketball took the first steps towards repeating last year’s success with a 67-38 win over Thacher in their first home game on Jan. 10.
Despite sharing a Frontier league title with the Thacher Toads last year, the Foothill Dragons showed that they were the dominant team by gaining an early lead and growing it throughout the game.
After Thacher won the jump ball, Nate Bova ‘19 quickly stole the ball and hustled for a pump fake and layup on the other end.
The next possession, Thacher hit a three pointer from deep, but Nate Bova answered with a three of his own, quickly putting an end to the only lead Thacher would ever hold.
Foothill allowed the Toads only four more points in the quarter, but they would go on to have a scoring field day. With ten points from Nate Bova, seven from Cameron Strain ‘18, four from Colin Vallance ‘18, and a buzzer beater by Trey Jackson ‘18, the Dragons ended the first quarter with a 23-7 lead.
It’s no surprise that coach Dean Prophet was impressed with the team’s offense.
He noticed that the team “shared the ball much better than we have in the past,” which helped them to get good, open shots.
Nate Bova agreed, remembering that “this last week we haven’t been playing that well as a team but we really stepped up tonight and shared the ball and got some good shots.”
The second quarter was more of the same. Vallance’s layup got the ball rolling, and it wouldn’t stop until the Dragons held a comfortable twenty point lead.
In the course of two minutes, Vallance was fouled on two more layups and drained four three throws, and Jack Vielbig ‘19 grabbed a steal for a layup, putting the Dragons in the thirties while Thacher remained in single digits.
Strain contributed two more points, and Andrew Manley ‘19 hit a buzzer beater to end the quarter.
After the half, Bodhi McDonals ‘20 set the tone with a fadeaway jumper. Nate Bova hit another three pointer shortly after and Vallance added a layup.
Sam Bova ’19 came in with two and a half minutes left in the third and took full advantage of his time. After missing a jumper, he grabbed an offensive rebound and put it back up. The next possession, he did the very same thing. Sam Bova also wrapped up the third quarter with a clean three pointer.
His seven points helped Foothill take a 21 point advantage.
Nate Bova came back in in the fourth quarter and hit a three in the first twenty seconds.
Cisco Lomax ‘18 followed him with another three pointer, and Nate Bova again a minute later.
Lomax commended Nate Bova for his strong game, saying “Nate was making everything he shot, he did great. He was just making all the threes he looked at.” He finished with 23 points.
After a jumper by Thacher, Nate Bova had back-to-back steals for layups, putting Foothill ahead by thirty points.
Ty Macias ‘20 contributed two points and Jagger Dadigan ‘19 three as the Dragons ended the game with a 67-38 victory.
The victory is a great start to a season of high hopes, with players setting goals to win league and go far in CIF, according to Prophet.
With what Prophet called “good contributions” from both starters and off-the-bench players alike, the Dragons won with their cohesiveness.
Both Lomax and Nate Bova described the game as a “good, team win,” one they hope will be the start of many as they continue chipping away at their goal, as Lomax put it: “to be as good or better than we were last year.”
