Sal Vance the sophomore small forward for Skyline’s basketball team this past season has played exceptionally well. Vance has averaged a double-double per game even though his team finished under .500 6-18 (3-7) and he was one of the many sparks for the team.But before Skyline basketball head coach Tony Raffetto recruited Vance to showcase his basketball talents. Raffetto was approached by a gentleman named Jermaine Hill, who was Vance’s mentor who helped Vance get into Oakland Tech high school along with living with him for 2001-02 season. Hill helped in tutoring Vance in his studies went from having very little academic success to become a NCAA clearinghouse qualifier out of high school (minimum is typically about 2.5 overall GPA in core subjects coupled with approximately a 700 SAT score). Vance’s playing style is reminiscing of a former Skyline basketball player Tremaine Fuqua, who is now at Oklahoma State. Raffetto said there are some similarities.”Tremaine was more of a pure center,” Raffetto said in an e-mail interview. “He had good post moves. He happened to have a good shooting touch for a big man. This is the area that Tremaine and Sal are similar. They are both big guys (Fuqua is 6’9″ 240 and Vance is 6’8″ 220) Vance was more of a small forward in the fact that he did not have a low post offensive game. He strictly scored by virtue of jumpers or by running his lanes on a fast break.”Vance’s teammates are happy that he is on the team because they know that he is one of the vocal points on offense and on defense. In the last three home games, Vance scored 23 points and 10 rebounds against Chabot, 19 points against Foothill, and 24 points and 17 rebounds against De Anza his teammate Craig Williams was ecstatic about Vance’s play.”He gets 20 points and 20 rebounds every game,” Williams said. “Nobody can stop him. He just dominates.”In the NBA, the Los Angeles Lakers have arguably the best player in the game, Shaquille O’Neal where opponents did in terms of double teaming Vance.”Since I have started putting up numbers in the league,” Vance said. “Everybody tried to heath to it and they try to double team or triple team me.”Later in the season, opponents started to double team Vance and that leaves teammates wide open to make key shots.”Sal gives his teammates an advantage because most teams will double team him when we have the ball often resulting in the rest of us getting open shots,” Raffetto wrote. With the success of Vance’s play, a lot of division-one college basketball schools are looking at Vance to play for their respective college. A college like New Mexico State is looking to recruit him.”I just keep everything calm this is just the beginning,” Vance said. “I got a long way to go. I got to keep working hard to fulfill my goal and I am not going to quit.” Vance said.