Escazu 77 Barva 88

Our first road game was a visit to Ferreteria Barva, one of the league's traditional powerhouses. The team underwent some important changes, bringing in a slew of old and new faces. An experienced  coach from Puerto Rico, Wilo Colon, has come in with a new approach to turn things around. One of the other significant changes is that Barva will not be playing their games in the roomy Palacio de Deportes.  The team wants to play at the old Liceo de Barva gym, but an impasse with the school administration has them playing in San Joaquin Flores, the only court I know with gutters running down the sideline.

I was away from the team for a week on business. In that time we dropped a six point loss to defending champion San Ramon. With teams dropping out at the last second, we now have these weird gaps in our schedule with ten days between games. The practice before the Barva game, we had a practice injury to our big man Juan Carlos Rosich that required several stitches and will keep him on the shelf for the foreseeable future.

Barva got off to a hot start moving the ball around and getting good looks for their big man David Shedden. The game was back and forth through the first six minutes, but they started to build our lead  as we went to the bench. An offensive lull on our part allowed them to build a slight lead going into the second quarter. In the second quarter we had better ball movement, leading to a 30 point quarter effort and gaining the lead on Hernie Forrester's three pointer at the buzzer.

The shots stopped dropping in the third quarter, while Barva preyed on turnovers and misses to get on a big run. Coach Colon decide to change things up with a small ball lineup that helped him take a 15 point lead going into the final quarter. We had a few runs in the final quarter to get the lead back down to eight points, but Barva got timely baskets from Malcolm Leitford and Gabriel Moya to sustain their advantage and ensure the win.

Antonio Jones had 21 points and Clifford Smith had 20 for Escazu, while David Shedden led a balanced Barva scoring production with 22. Next up is an away game to Grecia.