This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Warriors suffer first loss of season

Curry starts hot, then goes cold. 

As people went shopping early Friday morning on what is officially known as Black Friday, the Santa Cruz Warriors could consider the day being renamed to Black and Blue Friday.

The Santa Cruz Warriors (3-1) were thankful for very little Friday night, losing to their division-rival Bakersfield Jam (1-3) 92-107 suffering their first loss of the season and a rare loss at home.  The Jam earned their first victory of the season in the process. 

Bakersfield Jam Center Brian Butch finished with a double-double as he scored 20 points to go with 14 rebounds while Jared Cunningham, on assignment from the Atlanta Hawks, led all scorers with 23 points and six rebounds.

Find out what's happening in Santa Cruzwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Warriors got off to a hot start after trailing 6-11 early in the first quarter, responding with a 12-0 run of their own. 

Seth Curry was dominant early, scoring 16 points in his first quarter of work and accounting for nearly half of the Warriors 34 points shooting 6-for-7 from the field.  He also dished out three assists pacing himself to break both his own assist and points records. 

Find out what's happening in Santa Cruzwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The rest of the night didn't go so well for Curry as he finished the game with only 1 more point off a made free-throw, shooting 0-for-12 the rest of the way.  Neither did it for the rest of the team after shooting a lights-out 5-for-7 from three-point-range in the first quarter, the Warriors only made one three-pointer the rest of the game, finishing 6-for-22 from downtown. 

"Shooters go cold every once and awhile, that's why we keep percentages," said Warriors head coach Casey Hill.  "Luckily for Bakersfield he didn't make shots."

The tempo slowed down in the second quarter as both teams were content playing in the half-court offense.  Brian Butch and Mark Koshwal finished the half with 12 points each for the Jam, shooting 5-for-8 and 5-for-12 from the field respectively. 

Kevin Kotzur was hot in the second quarter, leading all scorers with nine points to go along with his six rebound, putting together a near double-double in just over 20 minutes of work.  The Big Fundamental put on a clinic shooting 4-for-6 from the field while cleaning up the glass for the Sea Dubs.  He finished with a double-double scoring 12 points to go with 13 rebounds. 

Cameron Jones led the Warriors with  22 points while Hilton Armstrong scored 12 points, pulled down eight rebounds and tied his own franchise record of six blocks. 

The Warriors came out at halftime looking sluggish and playing very sloppy basketball, scoring only five points halfway through the third quarter until William Buford had a put-back with 5:56 remaining.   The interior play of the Jam was the difference maker, as the Warriors depleted bench (Forwards Joe Alexander and Taylor Griffin remain inactive) meant Kotzur and teammate Hilton Armstrong had to own the center position, but struggled with foul trouble, limiting Hill's options to replace them.

 Hill had no choice but to go to with a smaller lineup including Mychel Thompson and Orion Outerbridge, who had seen very few minutes thus far this season.  This played into the Jam's hands as they outrebounded the Warriors 62-47, including 26 offensive rebounds.

"Anytime you give up that many offensive rebounds it's going to be really difficult to win games,"

Mac Koshwal, a nonfactor during the preseason encounter between both teams, dominated in the paint and finished with 22 points and 18 rebounds.  Both Armstrong and Kotzur struggled to contain him as he cleaned up the weakside rebounding.  The Jam finished with 26 second-chance points. 

Santa Cruz struggled to get going as the Jam had their way inside and outside.  Jared Cunnigham had 21 points at the end of the third quarter as Kevin Kotzur and Hilton Armstrong earned their fourth personal fouls of the night as Kotzur even received a technical foul. 

The Warriors got back into the game early in the fourth though, going on a 12-to-4 run as the crowd grew louder and louder with each made basket.  The Jam only scored six points halfway through the fourth quarter compared to the Warriors 12.

A James Nunnally three silenced the crowd halfway through the fourth quarter and brought the Jam lead back up to seven points.  

The Warriors could never get back into the game as they struggled to cut the lead any further than four points, but some late executions on offense helped Bakersfield pull away at the end. 

Including tonight's game, the Warriors will play Bakersfield six times over the next 12 games, a stretch that coach Hill believes is the most important of the season. 

"It'll be a nice test for us, it'll toughen us up for the rest of the season," said Hill.

The Warriors play again tomorrow night as they host the Los Angeles D-Fenders.  Tip-off is at 7:00 p.m.





We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?