Live Oak faces Gilroy tonight, after beating Palma in TCAL
opener
The Live Oak Acorns boys basketball team had an inspired second half Saturday afternoon to defeat the Palma Chieftains 53-43 in Salinas to win their opening game of Tri-County Athletic League play.
Live Oak improves its overall record to 8-8 and is 1-0 in the TCAL with its win over the Chieftains, who are now 10-3 overall and 0-1 in league.
“They’re (Palma) one of the top teams in the league. Palma’s a well-coached team,” said Live Oak coach Brett Paolucci prior to the matchup. “We all start at 0-0. I hope we go down there and compete. We need to get back on track.”
And get back on track they did. Guard/forward Micah Jones led the Acorns with 12 points, including two 3-pointers, two rebounds, three steals and one assist. Guard/forward Brandon Greene finished with 11 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals for Live Oak.
Transfer student Orlando Johnson led Palma finishing with 16 points, while teammate Michael Willrodt added 11 points.
The Acorns trailed the Chieftains 27-23 going into halftime.
“We knew it would be a tough game,” Paolucci said. “They were going into it with a real successful preseason. All we wanted to do was to take each quarter at a time. We were down by four at the half after being down by six or eight in the second quarter. We never gave up.”
The late surge put the Acorns in good position to make a run in the second half.
Live Oak took the lead in the third quarter, 36-30, outscoring Palma by 10 points as its defense held the Chieftains to just three points.
“I was real happy with our defense,” Paolucci said. “We forced them into some long shots. They had a lot of outside shots where they missed, and we got the rebounds.”
In the fourth quarter Live Oak once again outscored Palma to put the game away. Seven different players scored for the Acorns in a game that turned out to be a defense battle.
Guard Ivan Silveira-Aguilart hit two 3-pointers for the Acorns, finishing with eight points, four assists, one rebound, one steal and one blocked shots.
“Silveira really took control of game, making sure we were in our offense,” Paolucci said. “We had solid play from our two post players Dustin Bynum and Robert Long. We had good high-low looks, which was something we stressed this week in practice.”
Bynum contributed 10 points, four assists, three rebounds and two blocked shots. He also went 4-for-4 from the free throw line. Long scored four points and had four assists.
Eric Mutz had six points and one steal for Live Oak, Alex Torshizi came on and added two points and one rebound for the Acorns.
The Acorns will try to continue their hot start when they host Gilroy tonight at 7pm.
“One thing that we want to do is as a team to take one game at time,” Paolucci said. “It was great beating Palma, but today in practice the focus was on Gilroy. They have size and speed are well-coached. They’re another team that was picked to win league.”
