Gaels Ride Broncos in Santa Clara
By Simon Tryzna
Stephen Holt was on a mission to destroy Santa Clara today. And he succeeded (courtesy of Andrew Nguyen).
This is the type of game that fans (myself included) have been waiting for all year. Sure, there have been blowouts before, but this was on another level. This was about a team coming together and collectively saying “no more.” Down 10-9, the Gaels went on a 24-0 run. This game would not be an upset. This game would serve as a warning to the rest of the conference that, even in a down year, the Gaels still have the skill and the talent, and, the most important takeaway from this game, the leadership, to go out and win the West Coast Conference Tournament.
This was a Santa Clara team that destroyed the University of Pacific on Thursday, a Pacific team that has a win over BYU on their resume. This Santa Clara team was a ridiculous Sam Dower jump shot away from defeating Gonzaga. And this Santa Clara team won in Moraga, something that is incredibly difficult to do.
Saint Mary’s ended up dominating Santa Clara on its senior day by a score of 76-54. Stephen Holt was phenomenal, going 13-16 from the field on his way to scoring 35 points. Brad Waldow had a nice game, scoring 12 points and grabbing 9 rebounds. Beau Levesque‘s 3 assists was a team-high.
Santa Clara struggled the whole game, but did get 16 points and 5 assists from junior guard Brandon Clark. Senior forward John McArthur led the Broncos on the glass with 4 boards. Santa Clara’s second leading scorer Jared Brownridge struggled to get going today, scoring only 5 points on 2-7 shooting.
Led by Holt, the Gaels shot the ball incredibly well and played great defense. They defended the Broncos back court well and crashed the boards even better. By no means was this a clean game, there were many turnovers that led to easy Santa Clara points.
While Holt was the star, it was nice to see James Walker III shoot the ball well and Garrett Jackson drive the ball to the rim. Matt Hodgson has been playing well of late, allowing Waldow to get extended breaks.
Ultimately, this is only one game. The Gaels close out the season against a good Portland squad before hosting their rival Gonzaga on Senior Night. If they can build off of this game, and run Portland out of town on Thursday, then this could be a start of great run; if they play poorly then it will be exactly what this season has been so far: a major disappointment.