On Nov. 23, Delta’s basketball team came up short against an 8-0 West Valley College at home. The score came out to be 77-53, with sophomore shooting guard Kendrick Currey scoring 16 points and freshman point guard Arvind Sandhu scoring 15 points for the team.
Sandhu, who is in his first year here at Delta, is already a starter for the team and has been averaging double-digit numbers each game.
“Arvind did a great job as a freshman,” said Head Coach Richard Ressa. “I’m really excited for him and he’s a great kid. He has high basketball IQ and he’s gonna continue to get better throughout the season.”
Even though the Mustangs had three of the team’s usual top eight players injured for the game, Ressa said the team still came out the game with great effort and execution.
“I felt that we executed the scatter part well,” said Ressa. “There’s always room for improvement. I thought we boxed out well and I thought we played with more edge and aggression. And, for being so banged up, I thought we had a good effort.”
In the first half of the game, the Mustangs struggled on defense against West Valley. By the end of the first half, West Valley had put up more than 40 points, while the Mustangs only had 24 points.
“I don’t think there were any downfalls in the first half when it came to our defense,” said freshman power forward/center Dominic Perasso. “I just think that we gotta keep on getting better everyday and keep on working.”
Throughout the second half, the Mustangs had a decent offensive end as the team came up with 29 points to end the second half. The Mustang’s defense however continued to struggle against the opposing team’s offense as West Valley ended the half with more than 30 points.
“I felt like our offense was pretty steady, but on the defensive end, we couldn’t grab a rebound to save our life,” said Currey. “I feel like we’re gonna be a smaller team throughout every team play. West Valley was a very good team and we have to focus on boxing out and that was something we didn’t do in the second half especially.”
Although the Mustangs lost, the team used this game as motivation and shifted focus on the next games.
“I definitely use this game as motivation,” said Currey. “Anytime you get your butt kicked, you wanna come back and play the next day. But, unfortunately, our next game is Friday [Dec. 2] and so, we’re gonna take this time in this long practice week to really fuel us.”
The Mustangs compete in the Golden Gate Classic in San Francisco next. The team will first go against Northern Idaho College on Friday, Dec. 2 and then College of the Sequoias on Saturday, Dec. 3.