On Friday night, February 14, both boys and girls varsity basketball faced the Homestead Mustangs at home. Both teams fell to the Mustangs, with the girls being narrowly defeated 27-31 and the boys overpowered 35-58.
Girls Basketball
Following girls and boys junior varsity games against Homestead (42-26 and 53-45, respectively) girls basketball took center stage against the Mustangs in what would quickly develop to become an attempted comeback from the lead that Homestead built in the first quarter. Girls basketball ultimately fell 27-31 to the Mustangs and had its league record fall to 7-3 after the game.
Homestead came out roaring and took the first quarter by storm by scoring 15 points to Los Altos’ 6. The Eagles would go on to close in on Homestead’s lead in the second quarter by limiting the Mustangs to four points and scoring 11 of its own. Over the course of the game, Los Altos was led and carried by its sophomores—Meg Enthoven scored a game-high 13 points, followed by Katie Munro with six and Rachel Glein with four.
The third and fourth quarters saw a lot of back and forth action; the Mustangs responded to Los Altos’ second quarter rally by outscoring the Eagles by four points in the third, while the Eagles hustled in the fourth to narrowly outscore Homestead by two. Eventually, however, the lead that Homestead had built in the first quarter proved to be too great. Los Altos nearly came back to clinch a narrow win in the closing minutes of the game, but a clutch repossession by Homestead with about a minute to go and two drained free throws with 3.1 seconds left in the game ended any hopes of a comeback.
Boys Basketball
Boys basketball fell to the Mustangs 35-58 in a significant upset.
Both teams came out hard, scoring 14 points in the first. Captain senior Joey Malgesini and junior Daniel Rosenbaum scored big early in the game, and would go on to score team highs of 12 and 11 points, respectively. But just as it seemed like the back-and-forth action would continue, Los Altos’ offense fell apart. The second and third quarters would not only see the Mustangs continue to score 14 per quarter, but also Los Altos fail to reciprocate this, putting four and 10 in the net, respectively.
Though Blue Crew came out in full force for the game, Eagle offense struggled to keep up with Homestead throughout.
“We shot horribly,” head coach Bob MacFarlane said. We had all of the looks that we needed and we didn’t make them.”
A final push by Homestead in the fourth drove the nail into the coffin for the Eagles, as the Mustangs delivered a 16 point performance to the Eagles 7.
The Eagles’ loss to Homestead is especially surprising when numbers are taken into consideration. Coming into the game, Los Altos held an 8-1 league record (with its only loss to Palo Alto High School) to Homestead’s 4-5. The Eagles had defeated the Mustangs with relative ease in their first encounter earlier in January, overpowering them 53-43.
With their loss to Homestead, the Eagles are now 2-2 in their past four games and 8-2 in league. The Eagles remain first in the De Anza league.
Los Altos now looks to finish off league by regaining some of its early season momentum before going into CCS playoffs. But for now, MacFarlane has one thing in mind.
“In our next few games, we need to shoot better,” MacFarlane said.
