Matthew Aquino finally played in the 2021-22 B.League season during Shinshu’s 86-51 rout of Akita, Saturday at White Ring.
Despite having just 10 healthy bodies, Brave Warriors head coach Michael Katsuhisa rotated just eight players in the contest. He only brought in Aquino in the last two minutes and 33 seconds of the game.
Still, the 6-foot-8 second generation cager made do with his given minutes, scoring two points with two rebounds.
Definitely, Shinshu has found their groove as it racked up its fourth straight win to go up to 6-4 in the west. On the other hand, Akita dropped to 4-5 in the east.
Playing without Yuta Okada and Louis Kurihara, the Brave Warriors leaned on Wayne Marshall and Josh Hawkinson to do the damage against the Happinets.
Marshall pumped seven of the Brave Warriors’ 22 second quarter points that gave them a dominant 48-26 lead.
Marshall had 18 points on 8-fo-12 shooting, while Hawkinson added 15 points on two treys with seven rebounds.
Reo Maeda and Yuta Osaki stepped up as well, since Anthony McHenry saw himself limited to just four points and four rebounds. Maeda had 15 points and four rebounds while Osaki added 10 points as the two had two triples each.
Akita, who shot just 31-percent from the field and 3-of-18 from deep, was led by Alex Davis’s 13 points and 11 rebounds. Jordan Glynn got 11 points but shot just 3-of-13 from the field.
The two squads square off again tomorrow at 2:05 PM.
