Stallions get first win for new coach

Benny Munoz/The Madera Tribune

Madera South’s Joe Galvan gets a shot off in front of a Fresno defender to score two of his game-high 29 points in Tuesday’s victory over the Warriors.

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Behind a 29-point performance from senior Joe Galvan, the Madera South Stallions boys basketball team made new head coach Corey Edmiston a winner in his first home game of the new season.

The Stallions used a third quarter run to turn a tie game at the half into a 68-55 victory over the Fresno Warriors on Tuesday.

“Joe stepped up big time,” Edmiston said. “He put us on our back for a little while. It was awesome.”

Galvan recorded a double-double with 12 rebounds to go with his 29 points. He scored 12 of Madera South’s 22 points in the third quarter and scored 18 in the second half.

Daniel Valdez added 10 points with five rebounds and four steals. Erik Cervantes scored nine points off the bench while Nathan Barron added eight.

Madera South’s defensive intensity gave the Stallions the early lead. After Fresno scored the first two points of the game, the Stallions scored the next 13.

After a Galvan free throw, Valdez turned a steal into a layup. Rondell Jordan hit a 12-foot jumper, Off a Julian Camacho steal, Valdez made another layup. Galvan scored down low and Valdez went coast-to-coast with a rebound and layup. Galvan closed the run by putting back his own miss.

After a Fresno free throw, Barron made a layup. After a Fresno bucket, Barron closed the quarter with four straight free throws for a 19-5 lead.

“The full-court press is something that makes it easier on us,” Edmiston said. “We hope to get some easy baskets from that. It was a good match-up today for that. I don’t know if we will be able to do that all the time.”

Fresno took advantage of five Madera South turnovers to score the next seven points to cut the lead to seven.

Galvan made a pair of free throws, but Fresno hit two of its own. Cervantes put back a miss, stole a pass and made a layup to increase the lead to 11.

However, Fresno closed the first half in a flurry. They outscored the Stallions 15-4 over the final three minutes of the game. Galvan scored the only two buckets for the Stallions while Fresno closed the half with three 3-pointers to tie the game at 29.

“I felt like our defensive intensity wasn’t very active,” Edmiston said. “Our hands were down on shooters. I felt we weren’t down in our stance and our feet wasn’t bouncing. We were kind of stuck.”

After the Warriors scored the first two points of the first half, the Stallions scored 14 of the next 16 points to take control o the game.

In the run, Galvan scored eight points. Barron hit a five-foot runner, Julian Camacho made a short bucket, Angel Martinez-Garcia hit a 10-foot jumper to help Madera South take a 43-33 lead.

Galvan answered a Fresno bucket with a short jumper. Fresno cut the lead to seven behind a 3-point play, but the Stallions got a Galvan jumper, a Cervantes layup and an Adrian Becerra jumper for a 51-42 lead at the end of the third quarter.

The Stallions extended the lead to 20 by scoring the first 11 points of the fourth quarter. Camacho made a layup off a pass from Barron, Jordan found Galvan for a layup, and Galvan tipped a seal to Valdez, who made a layup. Cervantes kept the run going by sinking Madera South’s lone 3-pointer of the night and Valdez made a driving layup for a 62-42 lead.

After a Fresno layup, Galvan made a layup and Martinez-Garcia made two free throws to get the lead to 22 points. Fresno scored the final eight points of the game, but it wasn’t nearly enough for a 68-55 Madera South victory.