Prep basketball: Caden Pinnick helps Del Oro take down Rocklin in rekindled SFL rivalry
Walk into the Bonner Gym on the Del Oro Campus in Loomis and the football team’s championship banners are impossible to miss. There are six on the far wall for section championships, all coming since 2010, with another celebrating a 2015 CIF state championship.
But the Golden Eagles basketball team hasn’t basked in the same success recently. Head coach Geoff Boyles’ group has missed the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs each season since 2018, a four-year drought, and they’re hoping a strong start to the 2023 campaign can buoy the program into a much-needed postseason berth.
Del Oro improved its chances Wednesday with a 54-50 win over Rocklin to improve to 15-7 on the season and 2-2 in the competitive Sierra Foothill League. The Golden Eagles are 12th in The Bee’s latest rankings.
“Any win in the SFL’s big,” Boyles said afterwards. “But beating a rival like Rocklin, who’s a really good team, that’s a huge win for us.”
The win marks the Eagles’ ninth in 12 games. They were spurred by senior guard, and leading scorer, Caden Pinnick’s 18 points, along with junior big man Jake Williams’ 15. Rocklin took a 25-17 lead into halftime, but Del Oro outscored its rival from the other side of Interstate-80 by 12 points in the second half.
Boyles dialed up a zone defense the Thunder struggled to score on early in the game before switching to a man-to-man look later on.
“I was really happy with our defense,” Boyles said. “Rocklin’s a really good offensive team. To hold them to 50 is a really good defensive performance from our kids. They dug deep. I thought we rebounded the ball really, really well.”
Rocklin fell to 0-4 in league play and 11-11 overall. Mark Lavrenov, a 6-fooot-7 sophomore, led the Thunder with 15 points, showing an ability to score down low while also hitting a key 3-pointer late. His team took a one-point lead into the fourth quarter, but Del Oro began the frame with a 7-0 run.
The road team had a chance to take the lead inside the final minute but committed a crucial turnover on a carrying violation, and then committed a clear-path foul on Pinnick, which sent him to the free-throw line with 12.5 seconds left. He made two shots that essentially put the game on ice.
Boyles was proud of his team for overcoming a deficit entering the third and fourth quarters to come away with the victory.
“We have some resiliency,” he said, “and our kids are not going to quit. They’re going to keep fighting and clawing to get back in the game. We didn’t have a great first half, but we came out with a lot of energy in the third quarter — got ourselves into a position where we had a chance to win the game in the fourth, which is what we always want to do. I’m just really proud of their effort and their resiliency.”
