On Wednesday and Friday of last week the three Los Banos Tiger basketball teams hosted the Atwater Falcons and the Merced Bears to open their 2025 CCC league hoop season.
The Tiger Freshman team (1-1 CCC) behind the strong play of Elijiah Chiapetta (16 points, 5 rebounds), Damien Osegueda (7 points, 3 rebounds), Issac Garza (7 points, 6 rebounds), Landon Borja (7 points, 8 rebounds) and Zaevin Cancino (5 points, 7 rebounds) defeated the Atwater Falcons by the score of 50 to 42.
However, the young Tigers could not overcome the pressure defense of Merced and dropped the game to the Bears by the score of 50 to 36.
Chiapetta (15 points, 9 rebounds) and Cancino (6 points, 12 rebounds) paced the Los Banos offense against Merced.
The junior varsity Tigers (0-2 CCC), despite the overall strong play from Jonathon Snapp (17 points, 14 rebounds in the two games), lost both of their league games, 57 to 36 to the Atwater Falcons, and then 65 to 38 to the Merced Bears.
Nico Bothelo (15 points) and 10 points each from Jaxson Mancebo and Jesus Garcia and eight points from Moises Perez followed Snapp for the Tiger offense.
Then in the varsity games the Tigers (0-2 CCC) had no answer for the Falcons or the Bears, dropping a 64-46 decision to Atwater and then a 53 to 40 loss to Merced.
Eric Ramos scored 14 points in each of the two games, followed by the all-around outstanding play of Yarir Zuniga (14 points, 14 rebounds, six assists), but Los Banos had no answer for the high-pressure defense employed by both teams, resulting in 22 turnovers in the Atwater game, and 25 turnovers in the Merced contest.
Los Banos shot 23 percent from the floor against Atwater while hitting 85 percent from the charity stripe.
Against Merced, the Tigers hit on 33 percent of their floor shots but never took a shot from the free throw line, as their offense consisted of mostly low percentage 3-point shots with very little rebounding for Los Banos.
