Golden Valley Grizzlies boys’ basketball continued its hot start to the year on Tuesday, taking down the visiting Foothill Tech Dragons, 70-42.
Playing in their sixth game in seven days, but first at home, the Grizzlies (4-2) saw every player score at least once on their way to their third-straight win.
“I think today we played good as a team,” said junior Alex Villejo, who had a team-high 13 points with four 3-pointers. “We were able to get a lot of our players in the game and just help for our development and team chemistry moving forward.”
The lone senior on the team, Kenyen Andrews, had 12 points to go along with a team-high eight rebounds and five steals.
It was nearly a wire-to-wire victory, save for a brief period at the beginning of the game when Dragons (1-5) junior Ashton Brown knocked down a 3-pointer to make it 5-5.
The Grizzlies began to slowly pull away after that. A 21-point lead at the half ballooned to 31 after the Dragons were held to just four points in the third quarter, all coming via free throws.
“I think we have some tired legs,” said Golden Valley head coach Chris Printz. “I wasn’t really happy with how we started the game, to be honest. But you know, you have to be mature about it and come out and do your job. And I thought we did that.”
Sophomore Donovan Webb scored eight points, collecting four rebounds and two assists. Villejo added five rebounds and four steals, while junior Wyatt Printz knocked down a couple of threes on his way to seven points, three rebounds and three assists.
Using an up-tempo offense to go along with a high-pressure defense that led to 14 steals on the night, the Grizzlies were constantly on the attack.
While it’s the same system that coach Printz has run throughout his time as the head of the program, this year sees him coaching a bigger and lengthier team than in years past. Webb, Villejo and the younger Printz are all listed at 6 feet, 4 inches or taller, and sophomore Nick Gastaldi (seven points, three rebounds) comes in at 6 feet, 7 inches and sophomore Narek Penderdzhyan (seven points, six rebounds) is 6 feet, 4 inches
“Our length can cause some people some problems, if we use it correctly,” coach Printz said. “And I thought tonight, especially second, third, fourth quarters, we used that length to our advantage.”
It was a somewhat quiet performance for Webb on Tuesday, but that came after putting up a highlight-reel dunk against Lancaster on Monday, stealing the ball and dunking it over a defender with 4 inches on him. He’s one of the young players that has his coach thinking the future could be now for the Grizzlies.
“My head coach is a great guy,” Webb said. “Last year, he gave me some confidence, but it was rough. But starting off this year being confident definitely helped me a lot.”
Villejo has been lighting teams up to start the season, recording at least 20 points in four games, including a season-high 36 points with eight 3-pointers in a win over Simi Valley last week.
Villejo and Webb, along with Printz’s son, are part of the young core for the Grizzlies that coach Printz says is always working to keep the offense flowing and get others involved.
“They’re doing it in an unselfish way, which is, you know, Golden Valley basketball, and so it’s not like they’re just chucking up a ton and not caring about the team,” coach Printz said. “It’s coming out of the flow of the offense, which is really, really good … The other thing that’s impressive is they’ve each had kind of rough games, and yet they’ve rebounded from that. And with young players, you know, it’s really easy when things are going good, but when things go bad, how do you respond to that? And so I’ve been really happy with the three of them.”
Up next is a matchup on the road Wednesday against the Crespi Carmelites. It’s one that Villejo said he’s had circled on the calendar since the schedule was created. Crespi (4-1) went 24-8 last year and made it to the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division 2AA playoffs.
“It’s gonna be a fun game,” Villejo said. “I’m just excited to have a lot a good competition to play against, and they’re a tough team. We just have to play as hard as we can.”
After that, Foothill League play starts up next week, with the Grizzlies looking like they could compete for their first league title since 2009, the only time they’ve won it.
“I think that it’s a goal every year that we compete for a league title,” coach Printz said. “I think that it might be a little more realistic goal today, but we have to see. You know, we’re a young team and we have to still cross a couple more hurdles I think before we can check that box, but we believe in ourselves.”
Wednesday’s game at Crespi is set to tip off at 7 p.m.