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When Palo Alto and Mountain View get together it’s two defensive-minded teams going at each other. Low scoring games are virtually guaranteed.
Add in the absence of Paly’s two leading scorers and the matchup becomes a turn back the clock affair with scores out of a bygone era.
Like on Thursday when Mountain View pulled out a 38-29 victory at the Peery Center.
“That was an offensive catastrophe, like you’re back playing in 1962,” Palo Alto coach Jeff LaMere said.
It’s a three-team race in the SCVAL’s De Anza Division, and with the win Mountain View (15-6, 7-2) moves past Paly (13-6, 6-2) into second place behind Los Altos (16-3, 7-1).
“Both teams were locked in defensively,” Mountain View coach Kevin Mack said. “It was a grind out win, a tough battle.”
Paly scored the first five points of the game but it was 8-8 by the time the first quarter was over and it was still 8-8 when Joe Brown hit a 3-pointer with 3:30 left in the second quarter. Nikhil Majeti’s bucket 1:10 before halftime was Paly’s only score of the quarter. Mountain View led 14-10 at the break.
“When you get into a game like that, every possession is magnified,” LaMere said. “The difference in the game was loose balls and effort plays. Mountain View came up with the 50-50 balls. Hats off to their tremendous effort.”
The Vikings picked up the scoring pace a bit in the third quarter and managed to take the lead 21-20 on a basket by Majeti with 36 seconds left in the quarter. But Mountain View’s Max Telkamp, who had just come off the bench, drilled a 3-pointer to put the Spartans back on top.
And that’s where they stayed.
“That’s his role, to shoot the ball,” Mack said. “For him to hit that shot was huge.”
Brown, also a standout receiver on the Mountain View football team, made three 3-pointers and led all scorers with 12 points.
“People know Joe can shoot the 3, but they might not know how smart he is defensively,” Mack said. “He’s an unselfish player.”
Joey Pier scored 10 and Patrick Kane had 9.
Mountain View has a big game with Los Altos coming up Tuesday, but Mack wants his team’s focus to be on Friday’s home game with Santa Clara.
“Los Altos is our rival, the kids all know each other, but we cannot look past tomorrow,” Mack said. “One game at a time.”
Matt Corrigan scored 11 points for a Palo Alto team that is struggling on offense without Ryan Lykken, who is sick and hasn’t played since Dec. 30, and leading scorer Sebastian Chancellor, who played limited minutes against the Spartans after sitting out Tuesday against Milpitas with a lower leg injury.
“We have to be able to use this as motivation for our Saturday game with Gunn,” LaMere said. “Not only is it our rival, but it will determine CCS seedings. It’s time for other guys to step up. But at the end of the day with everything going on in the world I’m just happy to be able to play basketball. Any sort of basketball, win or lose is great.”
The Palo Alto-Gunn girls game is at 3:45 p.m. Saturday with the boys game to follow at 5:15. Fans are welcome to attend.
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