After going down 15-11 in the first quarter, Live Oak dominated the rest of the game for a 45-31 win Thursday night.
The boys basketball team outscored the Bulldogs 24-16 after the first, holding them to single digits in all three remaining quarters.
“We made big shots when we needed to, played as a team and defense, really, carried us tonight,” said coach Jeff Yeung.
The real boost came in the third quarter when Eric Togliatti drained a trio of 3s to help Live Oak take a 32-25.
He led the Acorns with 12 points, all coming in the second half and all coming by way of the 3-ball.
Live Oak led by 10 after Togliatti drained a 3 to start the fourth quarter, but San Jose didn’t go away.
The Acorns got caught in the Bulldogs’ press and started to turn the ball over, allowing San Jose to pull within five.
But once the Bulldogs got to within 35-30, they were held to just one point the rest of the way.
Meanwhile, Live Oak got baskets from Irfan Farooqui, Symon Tan, Garrett Cardona and Brenden White.
Yeung gave credit to his big man under the basket for being a stopper in the second half and getting into the other team’s head.
“When he’s in the game, he’s a little bit slower, but man, you can’t teach size,” Yeung said. “… He’s a brick wall in there. You can’t move him. And after a while, teams stopped wanting to go inside on him. That’s a huge intimidation factor. He’s getting a lot more minutes this year.”
San Jose started the game on a 10-3 run before Live Oak’s Joe Goble hit a basket to get the Acorns on a run that pulled them to within one.
In the second quarter, Live Oak got a trey out of Cardona to pull the Acorns within one where the game stood for the rest of the quarter.
Yeung said defense really shined in the second quarter, which allowed his boys to overcome a slow start to the game.
San Jose was held to six points before the half, leading 21-20 all the while fans on both sides got loud as the game went back-and-forth.
“Man, they were rowdy,” Yeung said. “There were times my team couldn’t really hear what I was shouting. … I think with our crowd going too, that got us going.”
That energy didn’t carry over into the third.
San Jose was held to four points as Togliatti went on his run to give the Acorns a lead for good.
Cardona finished the game with nine points, with Goble adding seven.
The Acorns improve to 3-5 in West Valley division play. Live Oak is now kicking off the start of the second half of league play and Yeung said his boys are fighting for their playoff lives.
He said his team needs to pull out some wins against teams that edged them out in the first half of league play, but noted anything is possible in the West Valley.
“Any given night in this league, I really feel like any one can walk out of here with a victory,” Yeung said. “When you look at it, we had the first place team the ropes. Coming into tonight, they were 6-1. So really, anybody can beat anyone in this league.”
