Despite Live Oak’s slow start against Pajaro Valley Thursday, the Acorns never lost a quarter and trailed in just two stretches to pull out their first win of the season, 58-31.
“It feels good to finally get that W, I’m not going to lie. It’s been a long time coming,” said coach Jeff Yeung.
Yeung said the team should be at least 3-4, but slow starts and letting games slip away has led to Live Oak opening the season 1-7 after Thursday.
“Those are the rolls, and you have to go with it. Now we’re 1-7 and we have to build off that,” Yeung said.
Irfan Farooqui gave a boost to Live Oak in an otherwise sluggish first quarter, putting up six of the Acorns’ eight points to give his team an 8-7 advantage in the early going.
From there, Live Oak’s offense exploded; and it wasn’t just one player who did all the work.
“Tonight we were able to stay the course and do everything that we wanted,” Yeung said. “It felt really good. I think it instilled confidence in everyone from top to bottom. … Everyone was into it tonight. That was the good thing.”
No one had double figures in scoring, but three had nine points, two had eight and one other had seven for the game.
“One of the reasons we were so successful tonight is that we were unselfish. We were making plays for each other rather than trying to do it all on our own and be heroes,” Yeung said. “
Live Oak had 39 points between the second and third quarters, outscoring the Grizzlies 39-15 during that stretch.
Pajaro Valley didn’t have a field goal for the entire third quarter and had just eight for the game. Live Oak had 20.
The Acorns stuggled for a brief period in the second quarter, when PV opened on a 5-0 run to take a brief 12-8 lead.
Pajaro Valley was tied with Live Oak 14-all when the bottom fell out of the Grizzlies’ offense and Live Oak’s offense took over.
The Acorns after being tied went on a 13-5 scoring run that put Live Oak up 27-19 at the half.
That gap increased to 41-19 before a pair of free throws from Daniel Marquez broke a 14-0 scoring run for the quarter and a 27-5 run going back to the second quarter.
Meanwhile, the shooting of Eric Payne and Brenden White bolstered Live Oak, with eight points each between the second and third quarters.
They both finished with a team-leading nine points along with Joe Goble, who hit a 3-pointer in the third and was 4-4 from the charity stripe.
Farooqui and Symon Tan followed with eight points.
By the fourth quarter, none of Live Oak’s starters remained in the game and the back end of the bench responded well.
Pajaro Valley was limited to nine points for the final quarter as Live Oak’s transition defense stood tall.
Live Oak committed 11 second-half turnovers, but only gave up 12 points for the second half.
Yeung gave credit to his boys for getting back, though he admitted there were still some things to clean up.
“We still have a lot of room for improvement and (transition defense) is one of our weakest areas and we try to work on that everyday,” Yeung said. “… Most of it was hard work and effort. Understanding they’ve got to get back rather than jogging back lackadaisically. “
Live Oak played Gilroy in a quad game Friday night. The Acorns will next host Oakwood 7 p.m. Jan. 5 before kicking off West Valley play Jan. 6.
