The Los Medanos Men’s basketball team won their home opener and got back to .500 Wednesday night with a 71-49 victory over the visiting Diablo Valley College Vikings.
Despite basketball season starting over a month ago, the Mustangs have been exclusively on the road, starting the year competing in different early season tournaments. Head coach Derek Domenichelli said it was exciting to be able to play at home.
“I thought our fans were really into the game,” Domenichelli said. “They would cheer pretty loud and really motivate our guys to play harder. They played really well together and I was very proud of the way they shared the ball in front of our home crowd.”
Guard Dominick Dennis led the Mustangs in scoring against the Vikings with 20 points. It was Dennis’ fifth time scoring at least 20 points in a game this season, having scored double digit points in each of LMC’s first 10 games of the season.
“He’s a warrior out there, he just battles,” Domenichelli said. “He’s kind of like a Draymond Green that just gets to the basket and makes everybody better because he plays so hard on every single possession. He brings it every single day and the team feeds off his energy.”
Also having double digit points for LMC that night was starting center Tochi Onyeador with 18 points and rebounds. Guard Victor Montez also went for 10 points.
The Mustangs jumped to an early 14-9 lead over DVC and never looked back. LMC led the entire game, stretching their lead to as much as 23 by game’s end.
However, LMC struggled to beat DVC’s press defense late in the game. Numerous times, the Vikings had a trap on a Mustang ball-handler and Domenichelli would be forced to use a timeout to prevent a turnover.
“We just got to get the ball to the right guys,” Domenichelli said. “Sometimes we threw it to guys and we ran into the corners and picked it up, but we’re gonna work on that. We did a great job a couple weeks ago against team presses and went right through it so we’ll just make a few adjustments and get the ball more to the middle.”
Domenichelli said he felt his team shot the ball not only well, but with confidence. He added that he hopes the confidence can carry into some of their road games as well.
LMC entered Wednesday night’s contest against DVC with a 4-5 record, including coming off a triple-overtime loss to the College of Siskiyous in their final game at the Mendocino Tournament.
While the team’s record was under .500, Domenichelli said the team had been playing better than their record reflected.
“We’ve been playing pretty well all year,” Domenichelli said. “It’s just a matter of we missed some clutch free throws in a couple games or we could be 7-2.”
The Mustangs are scheduled to next play Foothill College at home Wednesday Dec. 11 with a 6:30 p.m. tip-off.
