With time winding down in the third, Joseph Lin drove down the lane, juked three Gunn defenders, leaped forward, and, in one motion, unleashed the dagger that slayed the Titans. While the sophomore guard scored 13 points, none of them were as important as the two that cut short a Gunn comeback and solidified the Paly win.
Coming into the game, the Titans (4-3-0 league, 12-8-0) had lost seven straight home games to Paly, a streak stretching to 2003. Senior Mike Scott’s slashing drives, Lin’s sharp shooting, and senior Dom Powell’s inside presence helped the Vikings (5-2-0, 14-6-0) continue this run and their run for a league championship.
“It’s always a big game when we play Gunn,” senior forward Jordan Jefferson said. “Especially on their home court because their fans are always pretty enthusiastic. We really needed this win to give us a solid shot at getting another league title.”
Head coach Peter Diepenbrock called for aggressive basketball early; the Vikings came out with a full-court press, which lead to several Titan turnovers. Paly could not take advantage of these opportunities and only scored eight points in the first quarter. Gunn, however, missed six of nine shots, and only finished with seven points in the first quarter. Paly improved its play in the second quarter as they scored 16 points, working its way to a 24-18 halftime lead.
With starting senior guard Mike Scott struggling with injuries, Lin stepped up and performed well in the spotlight, going 3-of-6 from outside the arc. After the game, Lin’s senior teammates had nothing but praise for the developing star.
“Joseph stepped it up a lot for us tonight,” senior guard Mike Scott said, “He shoots well, but often tends to lose confidence in his shot after a couple misses and we just told him to keep shooting and he lit it up.”
Paly continued its strong defensive play into the second half, limiting junior Gunn star Kyle Perricone to five first half points, and eventually finished with eight points. Charged with the task of guarding Perricone, Jefferson made plays all around the court and eventually finished with four steals on the defensive side. Perricone struggled all night long as Paly’s swarming defense forced him into taking contested and low-percentage shots.
“I was really just looking to put some defensive pressure on them and create some turnovers,” Jefferson said. “I just look to make the hustle plays when I’m on the court.”
Coming off of two injuries, Scott wasn’t his usual scoring self, but kept the Titan defense honest with his six assists, several of which were rifled through multiple Gunn players. With Scott reassigning his normal starring role to the younger Lin, he was happy to help in any way he could.
“I was looking to run our offense, control the game, try not to force too many things,” Scott said. “I couldn’t do too much because of my sprained left ankle and plantar fasciitis in my right foot, but I tried to do a bunch of little things to help out my team as much as I could.”
Scott added eight points, and hit all six free throws in what was an overall solid team performance from the line. Senior center Dom Powell led all scorers with 17 points on six of eight shooting, in addition to going 5-for-8 from the line. He also pulled in 10 rebounds, swatted four Gunn shots, and tallied three steals for good measure.
“Dom is huge for us…because we look for him to play a good game every game,” Lin said. “For him to play well in this game especially was great.”
With Paly on the verge of pulling away late in the fourth, the Vikings committed several costly turnovers that allowed Gunn to come within six. However, they were quickly neutralized with Scott’s heroics at the free-throw line. After Gunn committed two shooting fouls, Scott hit all four free-throws, thus solidifying Palys’ 45-35 win.
“We really need to cut down on our careless turnovers because it’s lost us a couple games this year,” Jefferson said. “We can’t let that happen down the stretch.”
Paly’s next game is at home on Jan. 20 against divisional rival Cupertino. After losing to Cupertino 29-35 on Jan. 9, the Vikings are looking to avenge their loss against the De Anza League leaders.