Semi-Finals Game #1: San Ramon 62 Sanatura 87

For those of you who don't live around here, it rains a lot in Costa Rica. We have two seasons: dry season (roughly from November til March) and then we have the rainy season (April-October). The first half of the rainy season is not too bad with a pretty regular afternoon showers that last few hours, while the second half of the rainy season brings sustained downpours that can last for days.



Now normally, you don't have to worry about rain for an indoor sport like basketball. Our gyms, however, aren't well maintained and the onset of the rainy season always highlights those deficiencies. Almost every gym in Costa Rica has a leaky roof, which means you end up with wet spots on the floor. Some gyms use buckets to cath the leaks, but the most common solution is to spread around some old newspaper and hope the leak stops. Usually by the time a night game rolls around, the leaks will do just that and you're able to play on a dry floor. I wonder how the kids playing in the afternoons cope with these leaks and wet floors.

Anyways there we were, twenty minutes to tip-off to our first game and it was still raining hard outside, which meant we had two leaks inside the gym. We kept switching the newspaper pages, and somehow magically, right at tip-off it stopped raining and the leaks subsided. It would really suck to postpone a basketball game on account of rain.

As could be expected, semi-final games are tougher games than the regular season. We scored the first six points and broke out a small lead, which San Ramon soon closed. Daniel Simmons was back for San Ramon after missing a couple of weeks with a knee injury: Daniel is arguably the league's best post player so getting him back was huge for San Ramon. We kind of expected him to return, even though there were reports he was out for the season. Simmons lived up to his billing, refusing to let his team get behind by hitting jump shots, drawing fouls and even distributing the ball.  It was a match of two contrasting styles: we wanted to play more up-tempo while San Ramon wanted to go ball control and take advantage of their big men.

We were able to maintain a slim lead for most of the first half, sometimes growing it to eight points only to see them get it back to four or five. Then late in the second quarter San Ramon guard Darell St. Rose drove to the basket and crumpled to the ground upon landing. Unfortunately, Darell suffered a serious knee injury (we later found out it was an ACL injury) on the play. While San Ramon has a pretty deep team, Darell is a key player in their rotation and an important part of their success.

After a slow start in the third quarter, Chava and Henry combined for some hot shooting which let us pull away to a double digit lead. It's a great luxury to have these veteran warriors around for these big games. San Ramon tried to recover, but the lead stretched out to twenty points in the fourth quarter as our offense saw some better execution and our defense created fast break opportunities which carried us til the end.

Now comes the hardest part, winning on the road. Game 2 will be Friday night at San Ramon, a hard place for any team to win. We expect a loud, hostile welcome from the crowd as they support their team in a key game.

Game Notes

• My heart really goes out for Darell St. Rose.  Darell has really worked hard on his game the last few years, greatly improving as a basketball player. His outside shooting was greatly improved this year and that only happens from hard work in the gym. We came close to bringing him to Escazu three years ago, but the timing didn't work out (I was away from the team that year); I always thought he would have been a great addition. He found a home in the San Ramon program and has been one of the guys that has grown with their success. I really wish him a speedy recovery.
• Henry Martinez led our scoring with 23 points, including five three pointers. We've had six different leading scorers in the season so far. One of the things I've always liked as a coach is a balanced attack.
•  Daniel Simmons led San Ramon with 17 points and nine rebounds. The official stat sheet says only one assist which is wrong (they have San Ramon for two assists...that category is not well kept by the statisticians). 
• Michael had some thunderous dunks in this game, including an alley pop from Chava early on (something they have botched several times in the season). Too bad the local media couldn't catch that on video or film.