Season ends for NVC men's basketball with NorCal Regional loss to Columbia
By MARTY JAMES
AJ Loustau, Jayden Russotti and Kenny Brown all scored in double figures for the Napa Valley College men's basketball team, but the Storm lost in Round 1 of the 2026 California Community College Athletic Association Northern California Regionals to host Columbia College, 81-68, in Sonora on Wednesday night.
Loustau scored 20 points on 7-of-16 shooting from the field. He also had nine rebounds and two assists.
Russotti scored 17 points on 7-of-19 shooting from the field. He also had two 3-pointers.
Brown scored 17 points on 7-of-15 shooting from the field and 3-of-7 shooting from the 3-point line. He also had seven rebounds and two steals.
Napa Valley (12-17 overall, 8-8 Bay Valley Conference), the No. 24 seed, ended the 2025-26 season by coming back from an early 22-8 first-half deficit. The Storm trailed 35-33 with 3:33 to go in the first half.
Napa Valley was down at halftime, 41-36.
"I felt like we had a chance. It was a good game," Storm coach Steve Ball said.
"I thought we played well. It's a very hard place to play. It's a long drive. Our kids battled and they didn't complain about anything. They just went out there. It was a very physical game. It was physical on both ends of the floor."
AJ McCoy scored eight points and had three rebounds.
Jayden Robinson scored six points. He also had four rebounds and two steals.
E'Jay Rogers had two assists, Kieran Mannion had three rebounds, Russell Gibson had four rebounds, and Andrew Degirolamo had four rebounds for the Storm.
"It was a great environment to play in," said Ball. "Our kids embraced it and committed to defending the way we talked about and offensively doing the things that we talk about. We did a good job of getting in the paint and shot-faking and getting their shot blockers airborne and keeping them off balance that way."
Napa Valley finished in sixth place in the Bay Valley, and ended the conference season with wins over College of Alameda and Contra Costa College-San Pablo.
"We tripled our win total from the previous season," said Ball.
Columbia (24-5 overall, 13-1 Central Valley Conference), the No. 9 seed which tied for the conference title, advances to the second round and will face No. 8 Cosumnes River College-Sacramento on Saturday.
The NorCal Regionals has a 24-team field.
The 3C2A Championships are March 13-15 at College of the Sequoias-Visalia.
* Marty James is a freelance writer who makes his home in Napa. He retired on June 4, 2019 after spending 40 years as a sports writer, sports editor and executive sports editor for the Napa Valley Register, a daily newspaper in Napa County. He is a 1979 graduate of Sacramento State and a member of the California Golf Writers & Broadcasters Association. He was inducted into the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Hall of Fame in 2016, the Vintage High School Athletic Hall of Fame in 2019, and the Napa High School Athletic Hall of Fame in 2022.