DANVILLE — Over the past two years, Monte Vista has been forced to survive by feeding the post, with minimal offensive ability at the guard positions.
With Friday night’s 67-46 win over San Ramon Valley, MV showed that this year’s group has all-around skills, the sort of abilities that can propel a team to tremendous heights.
The sellout crowd at Monte Vista wasn’t disappointed as the hosts jumped out to an instant 12-0 lead and stayed in front by double-digits for all but 20 seconds the rest of the way. Junior guard Anthony Santa Maria came out on fire, hitting three early 3-pointers as part of his 13-point first quarter, and after his tremendous start, the mix of skilled guards and Kris Bortz’s presence in the middle ensured a comfortable win for the hosts.
Santa Maria’s first 3-pointer made it 5-0, and his tremendous play to reach over the scorers’ table to save an errant Wolves pass set up a Jack Stallard layup to make it 7-0. A block from Bortz led to a transition three for the hot-shooting junior, and his steal and layup put Monte Vista (13-4, 4-1 EBAL) up by 12 before SRV could even blink.
Pat Deely would finally snap the drought for San Ramon Valley (10-9, 3-3), but after scoring the Wolves’ first four points, the three-year varsity player would be completely held off the scoresheet. A Brady Bowman drive to cut it to 15-6 would be the one time SRV trailed by less than 10, and with a Nate Rutchena free throw and two from the line by Santa Maria, the lead was back up to 12. Another Santa Maria 3-pointer put the ‘Stangs up by 15, and they’d hardly look back from there.
“We’ve got scorers everywhere,” said Santa Maria, who led his team with 17 points. “We’ve got shooters who can take over games and there aren’t a lot of centers who can control the paint like Bortz does. It just makes life easier for everybody.”
The lead was 23-10 after a quarter, and when the Wolves got five points from Sebastian Scott to get within 10 at the start of the second, Nate Rutchena scored off the glass on a mid-range jumper, fed Bortz underneath and hit two free throws after pulling down an offensive rebound to make it 31-15.
SRV cut it to 12 by halftime, but the game went completely off the rails in the third quarter as Monte Vista used a 10-0 run, capped off by a Stallard 3-pointer, to bring the lead to 49-26. A reliable outside shooter with excellent form, Stallard scored eight points and was just one of the many who factored into the Mustangs’ convincing win. Bortz scored 13 and finished with nine rebounds, Rutchena had 10 points and nine rebounds and Matt Musselman scored 11 off the bench with his father, Nevada head coach Eric Musselman, seated right behind the MV bench.
Scott was the one player to keep the night from being a complete debacle for the Wolves, scoring a game-high 20 points with relentless attacks to the hoop regardless of the score. He scored nine in the second quarter and another nine in the fourth before fouling out with 2:52 left.
With such a convincing performance, the Mustangs are setting their sights high, though head coach Nick Jones was quick to address the few shortcomings he saw.
“We had a couple open gym segments that need to change,” Jones said. “The beginning of the second quarter was open gym and the segment in the fourth where they made one last push and we weren’t taking things seriously needs to go away.”
It’s not like a few subpar minutes took away from the big picture, as Jones saw his team reach its potential for much of Friday’s win, giving the Mustangs tons of momentum heading into Tuesday’s trip to De La Salle.
“It’s been two years since we’ve played them in this type of game. They’ve been a lot better than us, so we’re ready to get that rivalry cranked up again,” Jones said. “When we share the ball, we’re hard to guard. We’ve got the big man down low, Rutchena is a 6-foot-4 point guard, and we can surround him with shooters.”
At the start of the month, such a reality would have been tough to grasp as Monte Vista sputtered in a 54-41 loss at Dougherty Valley, but the offense has been in high gear since then. With revenge against the Wildcats on Tuesday and a lopsided victory over their crosstown rivals, the Mustangs have hit their stride.
“We’ve been practicing really well,” Jones added. “After the Dougherty debacle, we took a day off to unwind, and our practices have been really good since then.”
