Watched the Geyserville-Anderson Valley games Saturday night in the Boonville pavilion. Very impressed with the development of the Varsity team. This a young team with sophomores and juniors doing most of the playing. Miles Gibson more than held his own against Paul Blackburn, this year’s Redwood Empire Scoring Leader.
Blackburn seems to be one of these early-maturing kids who has superior quickness and jumping ability to that of most high school kids. Whether or not he will play at more advanced levels is questionable because he is a “tweener,” a guy who plays like a center/forward but is too small to play against big guys. Gibson, on the other hand, is just starting to come on. He has the size, after he adds some ballast so he won’t be bounced around underneath by the beefos, to become a good college player. He took Blackburn to the hoop regularly Saturday night and blocked numerous shots. Miles needs to develop more moves underneath, such as a little hook shot, right and left, to take advantage of his reach. If he works at it, Gibson will be a good player.
We were also impressed by the hustle of this year’s team. These kids play with a lot more intensity than last year’s squad, generally regarded as one of the best ever. Darren Groves, Kevin Erickson, Mike Haskins, Anthony Deshields, and Eric Thomasson really worked. They surprised us, actually, at how much they have improved. J.R. Collins has everybody playing to their max, all a coach can do, really.
One sour note. An Anderson Valley player was ejected from the game for committing a foul likely to cause injury. The play occurred when the Anderson Valley player cut the legs out from underneath Geyserville’s scoring ace, Paul Blackburn, as he drove to the basket for a stuff attempt. We thought the foul was inadvertent, the result of inexperience, not malice. But the bad thing was, The Anderson Valley players seemed to think the episode was funny. It aint. Plays like that in the wrong arena can lead to some serious violence, aside from being extremely dangerous to the victim and putrid sportsmanship. Hope the coach points this out.
Coach Blackburn, or Mount Blackburn, put on his typical sideline show, highlighted by his giving his kid and teammates a bunch of high fives after his son slammed one. Lots of high school coaches seem to think they’ve got to act like Hubie Brown in the NBA if their going to win knighthood in jockdom. The guy isn’t much of a coach. His team plays real dumb, your standard 6th period gym offense with everyone doing his own thing. Here’s hoping Geyserville gets ripped in league play.
Jerry Tolman got in a solid eight minutes the other night for SRJC as the Santa Rosa squad defeated Sacramento in a foul-filled contest. Tolman pulled down four quick rebounds and contributed to their victory with some fine defensive work.
Aaron O’Brien hit a clutch shot the other night to spark Ukiah’s victory over Healdsburg; Adam Bjorkquist had six points in the game.
The addition of Motor Mouth Vermeil (who talks like he mainlined an ounce of uncut crank just before going on camera), to the world’s worst announcing team, “The Greek” and Doucheberger, has even made NFL football announcing even worse. Get Wayne Walker, Madden, OJ, Don Meredith and Gifford. Everyone else should go.
Renee Alexander of Boonville starts for the Ukiah Varsity girls team. Erin King, Suzanne McClure of Boonville and Jenny Monts of Philo are members of the Ukiah JV girls team. Both teams are winning more often than not.
Rossi Hardware is sponsoring a basketball team in the Ukiah “B” Men’s League. The team sports snappy new uniforms and has a great shot at making the playoffs. A spokesman for Rossi’s has wondered aloud of five guys who play like Kurt Rambis can win in the big time. Yes, Rambis lives!
Rossi’s Hardware is 2-1 on the season. The members of the team are Chris and Nick Rossi, Jack and Chris Hayward, Gary Olson, Brian Wyant, Howard Mayberry and Dan Mandelbaum.
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