On Tuesday, Jan. 14, the boys’ basketball team lost 53-78 to rival team Bishop O’Dowd.
The Highlanders started strong in the first quarter as junior and captain Dillon Casey shot a three-pointer and was the first player to get points on the board for either team.
“Dillon Casey was huge for us [Tuesday], he scored 22 points and brought the ball to offense, so we thought Dillon had a good game,” said head boys’ basketball coach Ben Spencer.
Casey was able to grab the Dragons’ rebounds twice in a row during the first quarter and drive the ball up the court both times. As Piedmont continued to not miss rebounds, they finished the first quarter leading O’Dowd 13-11.
The Highlanders continued their early game success in the second quarter with a play from Casey.
“My favorite part of the game was second quarter, watching Dillon just break some dudes ankles, and take the layup. It was great to see, even though it wasn’t me, I love when my teammates succeed,” senior and captain Ravi Silverberg said.
In the last forty seconds of the second quarter, the ball went rolling leading to a four player dog pile on the court. The quarter finished with the score even 29-29 as the Dragons caught up to Piedmont.
Unfortunately for Piedmont, at the start of the third quarter O’Dowd began to overpower the Highlanders with an interception that led to a dunk from O’Dowd junior Kaiden Gibbs.
“Even as much as we practice to try to make adjustments so you don’t turn the ball over, sometimes it’s hard [not] to,” Spencer said.
Throughout the second half of the game Spencer estimated Piedmont had 17 turnovers, while only having around four during the first half.
“17 turnovers just means that we don’t get 17 chances to try to get a shot at the other end. So what we learned is that if we don’t turn the ball over, we can compete with the best teams in the Bay Area,” Spencer said.
Spencer’s players agreed that turnovers led to losses in the second half.
“In the third quarter, we kept turning over the ball, and they got a lot of dunks, a lot of fast break points. That changed the game,” Silverberg said.
Piedmont trailed the Dragons 47-58 by the end of the third quarter. As the buzzer marked the end, sophomore Beach Lorin tightened the score deficit Piedmont was facing with a successful layup.
“I thought Beach Lorin off the bench had a really good game for us too, [he’s a] sophomore in his first year of varsity, he was our second-leading scorer with 11 [points] so he contributed a lot,” Spencer said.
During the fourth quarter, O’Dowd made multiple dunks, three-pointers, and alley-oops contributing to a final score of 53-78 O’dowd.
“I think [in the] first half we held our own, but I think [in the] second half, our energy kind of faded away, and we didn’t come out the same way we started the game, and it definitely had an effect on how the game turned out,” said junior PJ Brayer.
Spencer said that he felt good going into the rest of the season as Piedmont’s performance against O’Dowd in the first half of the game showed strength and that the team is competitive with other schools in their league.
“Our goal on Tuesday against O’Dowd was to make sure we play hard and make sure we compete from start to finish which I thought our boys did all night long,” Spencer said.
Both O’Dowd and Piedmont are in the WACC Foothill league where the Highlanders now stand 1-1 in league play while the Dragons stand 2-0. Overall, Piedmont’s record is now 8-6 according to MaxPreps.
The Highlanders will face Terra Linda on Jan. 18 at 7:00 P.M. in Binks Gym.
