Despite a career high 26 points scored by Rod Picou the Skyline Trojans 15-11 (2-2) were defeated by Chabot 21-4 (3-1) 87-77 Jan. 29.
Picou scored the Trojans’ first six points of the game with four assists by Henderson. However, the Gladiators scored the next nine points after Isaiah Buckley scored two of his 14 points by a tip in to force the Trojans to call a time-out to make the score 9-6.
“Rod is a very good player,” said Chabot head coach Tony Costello. ” He is very strong on the block. We allowed him to get in the block too often.”
Later in the first half with the Gladiators leading by three points 25-22, Henderson cut the deficit to one point after he dunked the ball to force Chabot to call a time-out with 8:16 to play. Henderson scored 20 points.
“(Eldridge Henderson) really set the tone because I think he knew (Chabot) were going to be eyeing in on him because he is our leading scorer ” Picou said. “I think that says a lot about him on how unselfish he really is.”
By half-time the Trojans and Gladiators were tied at 40 apiece. Skyline wanted to feed off of Picou’s play to get a lead and win.
“Rod is an emotional player for us,” said Skyline guard Hasan Houston who scored nine points. “If he scores any type of basket he is juiced and fired up. When Rod scores, he lifts the team with him and you see he is a big guy but his heart is big too.”
In the second half Chabot forced numerous turnovers on Skyline to get points off of them to increase their lead.
“We played into (Chabot) defensive plan in turning the ball over in the clutch where we really needed to work something with (the ball)” Houston said.
But on the other hand the Trojans forced Gladiator turnovers to get back into the game by getting into the half court trap.
“That is coach’s decision,” Houston said. “He ran ‘the x’ a little bit later than I thought he would. But I think he wanted to save energy for the game. He ran it in the second half and we got a lot of turnovers I don’t think they were ready for that either…we were getting what we wanted from it.”
Every time the Trojans would make a comeback, the Gladiators would shoot three-pointers to increase their lead in the game.
“We needed to play more defense,” Henderson said. We knew who their scorer was, we knew who could score, how they score, and we just didn’t capitalize on it.”
Chabot’s two leading scorers in the game, E.J. Costello and Anthony Shavies who scored 26 and 20 points respectively, caused problems for the Trojans.
“They are good shooters you got to step on them quick,” Henderson said. “For Shavies you got to guard both sides. You have to guard his jump shot and you got to guard his drive. With Costello you got to guard his jumper and just a little of his drive. They ended up getting the better hand over us. Hopefully next time we play them we will capitalize on that.”
The next time these two teams play will be February 19 at Chabot.
With the strong efforts of Picou, the Trojans will look to do well the rest of the season.
“He is tough, he is built like a rock,” Costello said. “He is awesome he played really well this guy is awesome.”
Skyline holds off Foothill
In a game that was close throughout, the Skyline Trojans 15-10 (2-1) held off Foothill 3-18 (0-3) 69-63 Jan. 24. The Trojans came back on a few key plays to get the victory.
Foothill who had the lead through parts of the game, could not put Skyline away as the Trojans kept on fighting back. Foothill had a three point, lead 57-54, in the second half, Skyline cut the lead to one when Skyline center Tremaine Fuqua blocked Josh Urbiztanzo’s shot and teammate Eldridge Henderson stole the ball, dunking it to cut the Trojans deficit to 57-56. Fuqua and Henderson scored 15 and 20 points respectively.
“Eldridge comes through every game,” Fuqua said. “Eldridge is a good scoring threat for us. He drives to the hole and he can make open jumpers.”
Fuqua, being a sophomore, can be a leader on the court for the Trojans. Skyline looks upon him to score inside whenever they need a big basket.
“[Fuqua] stepped up big for us,” Henderson said. “He is our key player. We all depend on him on his leadership and he gives us good leadership.”
Once again trailing in the second half 61-58, the Trojans took the lead and never looked back as Trojans forward Jason Holman, who scored six points in the game put back a missed basket was fouled on the play in which the basket counted continued on the three point play to tie the game at 61 a piece. On the onsung play, Trojans point guard Dewayne Morris picked off an errant pass and took the ball up for an open lay up for his only two points of the game.
“Coach [Raffetto] put me in to get the big offensive rebound that was what I did for him,” Holman said. “That sparked a little run for us that picked up the defense. After that [Foothill] got rattled.”
After folding their athletic sports last year, Foothill is pleased to be playing basketball again as they look to the future.
“It’s great,” Urbiztanzo said. “We are an inexperienced team. But next year we are going to do some recruiting and hopefully we will come back more solid.”
Former player Urbiztanzo, who was cut by Skyline last year came back and scored 21 points in the game. 17 of those points came in the first half against his former teammates. But Urbiztanzo was held to four points in the second half. Urbiztanzo wanted to help his team defeat Skyline but was on the latter end. Foothill head coach Shanon Rosenberg thought Urbiztanzo played for his teammates and didn’t think this was a game that pitted Skyline against Urbiztanzo.
“[Urbiztanzo’s] motivation was to make our team better,” Rosenberg said. “If there was a little motivation because he played here last year kind of manifested itself in the way our team played.”
Even though Urbiztanzo scored a lot of points, he was very modest in crediting his team for their efforts.
“It was a whole team effort,” Urbiztanzo said. “It was not just me at all. All around we executed well, it was unfortunate we came out with a loss.”
Skyline will next play Foothill Feb. 14 at 7 p.m. in Los Altos.
