Shooting Starr lights way to Foothill’s tourney win

Foothill guard Austin Starr doesn’t need a lot of room to get his shot off. So when the senior got a little bit of space Thursday, he made Desert Pines pay.

Starr was 4-for-4 on 3-pointers in the second half and finished with 25 points to lead the Falcons to a 63-53 victory in the Foothill Holiday Classic’s Gold Division.

“He’s got a quick trigger,” Foothill coach Kevin Soares said.

Desert Pines led 26-25 at halftime, but Starr hit four 3-pointers in less than four minutes to help Foothill (9-3) stretch its lead to 45-33 with 8:36 to play.

“We buckled down on defense, but on offense we executed,” Soares said of the second-half surge. “We had a guy get hot. Austin got hot, and we found him.”

Soares said the coaches made sure Starr’s teammates knew to find the hot shooter. He was 6-for-8 on 3-pointers.

“We make them conscious of it,” Soares said. “Sometimes teams go away from a guy who’s hot, but we want to make sure our guy who’s hot keeps getting the ball.”

Desert Pines got within six twice down the stretch, each time after baskets by Nate Grimes, who scored eight of his 14 points in the second half.

But Starr shot 5 of 6 from the foul line in the final 1:10 for Foothill.

Soares said his team did a good job of making Desert Pines a jump-shooting team. The Jaguars were 4-for-17 on 3s.

“A team like Desert Pines, with all their quickness and athleticism, they kill you by getting to the basket,” Soares said. “We stressed help-side defense and kind of sagged off and forced them to shoot from the outside. They hit a couple, but it wasn’t anything that really hurt us. I think the game plan worked.”

Jalen Shepard had 11 points and five assists, and Torrance Littles had 10 points and four blocked shots for Foothill, which got 10 points off the bench by Vincent Modugno.

“That was good for us,” Soares said. “We’ve been looking forward to that matchup.”

For Desert Pines (4-3), freshman Trevon Abdullah scored 10 points, and Grimes had eight rebounds.

Contact prep sports editor Damon Seiters at (702) 380-4587 or dseiters@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DamonSeiters on Twitter.