Trojans take down Heritage to win NCS championship

The girls varsity basketball team has brought another Trojan trophy to Castro Valley. The Trojan team had battled with the Heritage High School Patriots and crushed the team in a superb match at Saint Mary’s College.

At the end of the first quarter, the Trojans were leading by one point. Despite this close score, the Trojans would eventually tire the Patriot offense to a crawl. Throughout the game the Trojans used a refined, superior offense and defense to bring the Patriots to their knees. The Patriots’ downfall was their inability to find a rhythm and combat the Trojan onslaught.

The Patriots had eventually resorted to boxing up Trojan heavy hitter, Nina Bessolo from scoring. The Trojan team would counter this determent with vigorous ball movement and creative teamwork to free up Bessolo. The Trojans remarkably were still able to feed Bessolo ammunition to score regularly despite the Patriot boxing.

“ She had to really grind to get those scores, they played really well defense on her. We had to space the floor and involve everybody. But could still give her the ball,” said coach Jim Lemmon.

Due to the Patriots inability to match the rapid ball movement and regular scoring by the Trojans, they would come to lose by a 30 point gap. Bailey Jones, using her speed and excellent distance shots, helped keep the Trojans ahead. Both Jones and Bessolo would drive the Trojan offense with a cumulative 37 of the 61 points scored.

“We really started to move the ball more and we lost all of our nerves. We eventually realised that we had this, we’ve seen what they play like and I really think it helped us play harder,” said Jones.  

The Trojans eventually began to create a permanent, large score gap that destroyed Patriot morale. The Trojans would continue to press their advantage throughout the game and stay concentrated. By the fourth quarter the Trojans were clearly the victors and finished the game with a score of 61-36. We hope to see the Trojans continue to carry the strong teamwork and unique chemistry to the championships.