Vikings are run over by Saxons

After watching North overwhelm first Mercy and then Sacred Heart Prep, it was the Vikings’ turn to feel the wrath of the Saxons as they score the first 20 points of the game and simply shut down Mills 65-18 in the championship of the Kelly Shea Gallo Classic Friday night in Millbrae.

“For us, the biggest thing tonight was to see how we handled pressure,” said Mills head coach Justin Matsu. “At first, it shocked us. … I would have liked to have seen us respond better.”

Mills graduated seven seniors from last year’s Central Coast Section Division III championship team and Matsu is doing it with two freshmen and a handful of players up from the junior varsity squad.

If Matsu wanted to give his inexperienced team a taste of high-level competition, the Vikings got it Friday night, because if North (6-0) had played the second half like it did the first — with a suffocating full-court press and sharp-shooting from beyond the 3-point arc — the final scored might have been worse.

If you were a fan of basketball and watching this game, you couldn’t help but be impressed by North’s style of play. The Saxons were two steps faster than Mills (2-1), the passing was quicker and crisper, the moved their feet so well on defense the Vikings struggled to get anything off the dribble, they jumped the passing lanes constantly and when the Saxons weren’t scoring on layups, they were bombing from downtown as they connected on eight 3s — seven in the first half.

“We knew they were a good team,” Matsu said.

It was the Saxons’ full-court press in the first half that was really the difference. In the first quarter, Mills struggled to even get out of its end of the court as the Vikings turned the ball over four times and North came up with five steals.

And that pressure translated into easy points for the Saxons. The game wasn’t even three minutes old and North had already built a 10-0 lead. When Camryn Shimazaki came up with a steal in the defensive end and went coast-to-coast for a layup, the Saxons were up 20-0 with 1:19 to play in the opening period.

Mills, meanwhile, managed only five shots in the first six minutes and change and finally broke the seal when Amaya Moore converted a fastbreak layup with 1:05 left in the quarter, followed by a 3 from Kelly Ho as Mills trailed 23-5 after the first.

It got worse in the second as the Saxons found the range from deep as they hit four of their eight 3s in the period. North hit on back-to-back 3s to open the second as the Saxons would score the first 16 points of the quarter and would go on to outscore Mills 25-2 to lead 48-7 at halftime as the Viking were held to just two made free throws.

North shot a blistering 65% from the field in the first half, connecting on 19 of 29 shots. The Saxons finished the game at 69% on 29-for-42 shooting for the game. The Saxons were led by Shay Tokeshi, who finished with a game-high 15 points. Sydney Matsumoto added 14 for North.

But the good news, as Matsu saw it, was that it was game No. 3 of the season for his team.

“That was the message halftime,” Matsu said. “This isn’t CCS or Nor Cals. Can we just get better in the second half?”

And the Vikings were better in the second half, mostly because North coach Lauren Kamiyama called off the press and slowed down her offense to keep from running up the score as the Saxons only outscored Mills 15-11 over the final two periods.

But that didn’t mean the Vikings were allowed to coast until the end. Matsu still wanted to see his team playing hard and executing their offense.

“The standard is still the standard. We expect them to play hard,” Matsu said. “I was proud of how our team played together.”