Mustangs impressive in their own summer basketball tournament

Basketball dribbled into summer last weekend when St. Vincent hosted the first Mustang Summer Jam Tournament. Eight teams participated with Fortuna, Santa Rosa, Clear Lake, Rancho Cotate, Montgomery and Averroes from Fremont participating along with the host Mustangs.

Teams were unofficial, and although they resembled squads that will be in varsity games come winter, not all players participated and things will definitely change by the time official season play starts. Still, it was a good look for the Mustangs who beat Clear Lake, 37-36; Marin Academy 37-25 and Averroes 42-28 while losing to a very good Montgomery team 35-27.

St. Vincent coach Tom Bonfigli was especially pleased with his team’s effort against Montgomery.

“Montgomery is a very good fundamentally sound team,” he said. “We played well against them. We did a lot of things well. If I get an effort and the players do what I ask them I am pleased.

“We are getting really good leadership from our seniors - Killian Collins, Dante Antonini and Jake DeCarli. Dante really did a great defensive job on Montgomery’s big man.”

Both teams played well in Sunday’s tournament-concluding game, not only displaying hustling, aggressive defense, but also showing good offensive ball movement. Of course, it was a July game, and both teams had trouble putting the ball through the hoop.

The first of two 20-minute halves was pretty much even with Montgomery going on a seven-point run at the finish to lead 18-13 at the break.

Montgomery’s height and experience showed in the second half. The Vikings built a 13-point lead as both sides cleared their benches. Rather than yield to Viking momentum, St. Vincent hustled back and closed the gap to six points by the finish.

In a game of generally cold shooting, Collins had a hot hand for the Mustangs, popping in four shots from long range for 12 points.

The Montgomery game wasn’t the only good outing for the Mustangs. “I thought we played well in all four of our games,” said Bonfigli.

St. Vincent’s opener against Clear Lake was the most exciting game of the tournament. St. Vincent was trailing by a point with Clear Lake at the free throw line and 7.2 seconds to play. The shot missed and within a few heartbeats, Antonini rebounded, passed to DeCarli who found Jack Davis with a pass as he drove to the basket to lay the ball in for a Mustang victory.

Antonini finished with 16 points, including two 3-pointers, one that cut the Clear Lake lead to 36-35 setting up the game-closing heroics.

Davis, a sophomore, scored nine points in the game and came back with nine more in the win over Marin Academy. DeCarli led the way in that game with 10 points, including a pair of 3-pointers. Junior Kyle Ghisletta scored five.

The tournament was one of several changes in St. Vincent basketball initiated by Bonfigli, and the veteran coach was pleased with how it worked out.

“Michael Baribault set it up and all the coaches helped out,” said Bonfigli. “I though it went exceptionally well.”