Los Gatos Weekly-Times Photograph by George Sakkestad Fighting for a rebound in an early season game, Matt Gingery played a key role in two Gatos wins last week. Groff leads Wildcats to back-to-back wins By Dick Sparrer The schedule wasn't exactly kind to the Los Gatos boys basketball team. The Wildcats were scheduled to open the league season against Milpitas and Palo Alto, the two preseason title favorites in the De Anza Division of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League. Gatos played each of them tough, but lost both games. It meant a 0-2 start to the league season for the Wildcats. But the Cats made up for that slow start with a fast finish last week. They breezed to easy wins over Lynbrook and Santa Clara in games last week to even their league record at 3-3 and up their season mark to 13-6. Gatos outscored Santa Clara in every period but the fourth on the road to a lopsided 16-point win over the Bruins. The Cats were up 14-6 at the first buzzer and led at the half, 30-12. Gatos stretched its lead to 24 by the end of the third quarter and coasted from there to the easy win. Senior guard Jonathan Groff led all Los Gatos scorers with 17 points in the win. The 6-foot-1 Groff tossed in seven buckets from the field and added three points at the line. Beau Knight supported with nine points, Matt Gingery hit eight, Ben Kane had seven, and David Whiteside popped six. Each one buried a three-pointer for the Wildcats. Devan Denton also hit six points to round out the scoring for Los Gatos. The Wildcats had cruised to an eight-point win over Lynbrook earlier in the week, but it wasn't nearly as easy as the win over Santa Clara. The Cats won by eight, but only after entering the final period locked in a 30-30 tie with the Vikings. Gatos had opened up a 14-10 lead in the first period, but the Vikes cut the lead to one by intermission at 23-22. Lynbrook outscored Los Gatos 8-7 in the third quarter to tie the game at 30-30, but the Cats topped the Vikings 20-12 in the final period to pull out the win. Groff tossed in eight shots from the floor to lead all LG scorers with 16 points. Knight supported with 15 points in the win, including a three-pointer. Gingery had nine points, Stephen Pulley five, Kane hit a three and Whiteside had two points. The Cats will try to maintain their winning ways this week when they visit Los Altos on Jan. 19, 7 p.m. They won't play again until Jan. 27 when they host Wilcox. Girls lose a pair The Los Gatos girls, meanwhile, lost twice last week in the De Anza Division of the SCVAL. The Wildcats were pounded 60-26 by top-ranked St. Francis, then they dropped a tough 48-42 decision to Santa Clara. Freshman guard Julia Pugliese had a big game for the Cats, but they couldn't fight back from a 23-point halftime deficit against the Bruins. Santa Clara opened up a 15-5 lead in the first period, then upped that to 23 points by intermission, outscoring the Cats 16-3 in the second quarter. Los Gatos came fighting back, though. The Cats handled the Bruins 15-3 in the third to cut the lead to 11, then topped Santa Clara 19-14 in the fourth to pull to within six. But that turned out to be Santa Clara's margin of victory. Pugliese had a three-pointer among her five field goals, and she added a point at the free-throw line to lead all Los Gatos scorers with 12 points in the game. Erin Cushing supported with eight points for the Wildcats, Nancy Shishido had six, Trina Mills and Katrina Sortino five apiece, Kristin Ozawa three, Tara Eichenger two and Shannon Hart one. Mills and Sortino each popped three-pointers. The Wildcats, now 0-3 in the division and 7-9 for the year, lost 60-26 to the Lancers to open the week. St. Francis dominated the first period 25-6 and upped its lead to 36-8 by the half before cruising to the easy 34-point victory. Shishido popped a pair of threes to lead the Cats with 14 points. Eichenger added four points, and Pugliese, Cushing, Ozawa and Mills had two points each. [ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, January 20, 1999. ©1999 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.