Venice Hoops Holds Off Hamilton

treated himself to a great birthday present by playing one of his best games of the season.

The guard poured in 25 points and led the Gondoliers' boys basketball team to a 56-51 win over a Hamilton squad that beat them by 11 points Jan. 19 in the first round of Western League play.

“We needed this if we want to go to the playoffs," Venice head coach said. “Sometimes Chad [Tanioka] gets in the habit that when he misses he gets down on himself, but he didn’t tonight. He calmed down and paid dividends in the end. He started making shots towards the end.”

The Gondoliers started off playing lockdown defense. Venice was also making its shots and dominated the first quarter, 13-3. Despite the 10-point lead, however, Galley was not pleased with the foul trouble his team was in.

“Ideally, we love to play man, but we reach a lot and get a lot of fouls, and we had to go to zone a lot of times," Galley said. "Same thing today. Great defensive effort in the first quarter but we had eight fouls at the end of one.”

Venice extended the lead to 19-6 before Hamilton finally put its offensive game together. The Yankees went on a 10-2 run before Tanioka made one of the biggest plays of the game.

Venice was holding for the last shot of the half when Tanioka took the ball in the corner and put up a three-pointer. Not only did he hit it, but he was fouled in the process, converting on a rare four-point play to give Venice a 25-16 halftime lead.

“That was my first shot," Tanioka said. "I needed that to get the rest of the shots in.  It helped me get my rhythm going in the second half.”

The Gondoliers twice had a 15-point lead in the third quarter–their biggest of the game, but Hamilton rsponded with a 7-0 run to close within 39-31 before Tanioka hit yet another clutch three-pointer to give his team a 42-31 lead through three quarters.

"We just needed it, there’s not much more I can say," Tanioka said. "My shots were falling late in the game.”

With three minutes left, Venice big man fouled out with his team up 53-43 and Hamilton was quick to take advantage. After was called for a questionable technical foul the Yankees scored eight points in one minute and cut the Venice lead to 53-51.

Hamilton had the ball, down by three points, with 35 seconds left when the Venice defense stepped up. Senior made a huge breakaway steal and layup to give his team a 56-51 lead and Hamilton did not score again.

“It’s nice to get this win but you don’t want to peak early,” Galley said. “It’s nice to get healthy towards the end of the season when it matters and hopefully we can get a Top-5 seed in [the Division 2 playoffs], maybe get a couple home games and make a run for it."

With the win, the Gondoliers improved to 11-14 overall and 2-7 in league. They will travel to first-place Westchester for a 5:30 tip-off Monday, then close the regular season with home games against University and Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies.

1st

2^nd

3rd

4th

END

Venice

13

12

17

14

56

Hamilton

3

13

15

20

51

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