BY MIKE GILL
The Westside Express
It was a different week, but the same results for the Los Banos Tiger varsity boys basketball team (11-10 overall, 0-8 CCC) as the locals dropped both of their games.
On Wednesday, the Tigers traveled to Merced to battle the Merced High School Bears and were outmatched and routed by the score of 90 to 37.
On Friday night the Tigers hosted the Golden Valley Cougars, also from Merced, and the locals came up short once again, this time by the score of 71 to 57.
This game was decided on the free throw line, as the Cougars netted 15 points from the charity stripe, while the Tigers never found the free throw line and therefore did not score a single free throw point.
Once again, the three-point shooting (6 of 19, 31%) resulted in no fouls against the Cougars, and Golden Valley completely controlled the boards out rebounding the Tigers 28 to 13, and their high pressure press defense forced the Tigers to turn the ball over 15 times in the game.
Yahir Zuniga (4 rebounds) and Eric Ramos (3 rebounds) and Josh Gargano (3 rebounds) accounted for ten of the thirteen boards for Los Banos.
The Tigers will attempt to get their first ever CCC conference win this week with a
game at home on Wednesday (Senior night) against the Buhach Colony Thunder and then on Friday when they travel to Merced to play the El Capitan Gauchos.
On Friday night the Tiger junior varsity squad claimed the only victory of the night for Los Banos defeating the Golden Valley Cougars in a tightly contested game by the score of 54-51. The locals took a 37-23 lead into halftime, only to have the Cougars outscore Los Banos 28 to 17 in the second half to close to within three points. That was as close as Golden Valley would get as the Tiger defense, led by Jaxson Mancebo and Jonathon Snapp, denied Golden Valley to ever tie the score.
The Tigers were led by Moises Perez (22 points, 8 rebounds) who had an excellent game for the locals, followed by Mike Perez (9 points, 6 rebounds), Kolton Kocher (8 points, 6 rebounds) and Zayden Affonso-Stiers (6 points, 2 rebounds).
As for the Tiger Freshman team, Los Banos narrowly lost to the visiting Cougars by three points, 41 to 38.
Elijah Chiapetta (10 points, 7 rebounds) paced the Tiger offense followed by Damien Oseguera (9 points, 1 rebound), Maggio Carter (7 points, 6 rebounds) and the all-around hustle play of Zaevin Cancino (5 points, 21 big rebounds).
