The Cavs lost to the Western Sierra Wolves 62-41 at Country Day on Jan. 29.
Junior Ted Zhou led the Cavs (4-13 overall, 1-10 in league) with 18 points. Junior Jackson Crawford followed with 14 points, junior Chris Wilson with four points, sophomores Avinash Krishna and Martin Cao each with two points and sophomore Max Wu with one point.
Wu attributed the Cavs’ loss to poor rebounding.
“We definitely (need) to work on offensive rebounding (and) rebounding in general,” Wu said. “Because when we shoot and don’t make it, (the ball) bounces around, and (Western Sierra) gets the ball. Then they’re off – they just sprint down to the other side and (score). That’s how (Western Sierra) got a lot of their points.”
Junior Aaron Graves agreed but added that the team has improved on rebounding since the Cavs lost at Western Sierra 59-43 on Jan. 10.
“We played much better than last time,” Graves said. “We did a much better job of boxing them out and getting rebounds.”
The first period ended with the Cavs behind 21-10. Western Sierra (11-12, 6-4) scored easily multiple times because of 6-foot-5 Brayden Biel, according to Graves.
The second period went even worse for Country Day, with Zhou and Wilson scoring all of the Cavs’ five points. The Wolves led 37-15 at halftime.
“We (had) a lot of turnovers and bad passes, and we really didn’t know where we were supposed to be on the court,” Wu said. “Our man-to-man defense was (weak). There were a couple of times (when) we got mixed up a bit, and one of their guys was open for a shot.”
With new-found energy, the Cavs scored 14 points in the third quarter. However, the Wolves subbed out most of their team and widened their lead to 54-29.
“We had better ball movement, so we were able to get to the basket (more often and score),” Country Day coach David Ancrum said.
During the fourth quarter, Zhou made a couple of free throws and layups, and Crawford sank some shots and 3-pointers. However, the Wolves’ lead was too large to overcome.
The Cavs’ next game is Thursday, Jan. 31, at 7:30 p.m., at home against Faith Christian.
—By Arijit Trivedi
