Cornelius pleased with his Yuba team's grit, character

With a young, inexperienced group under his wing this year, Doug Cornelius was hoping for one win at this past weekend's Santa Rosa Tournament.

Instead, his Yuba College men's basketball team gave him two.

After being down by 17 points at the half, the 49ers bounced back, just as they did against Santa Rosa the night before, and defeated Modesto 76-74 to go 2-1 to begin the season.

"It's awesome. We got this young team that is trying to find their way and they pulled out two big wins," the Yuba coach said. "We very easily could have folded our tent, but not one kid on this team was hanging their head. They actually told me, 'coach, we're going to win.' And they found a way to win."

Keenan Prince, of Marysville, led the 49ers with 24 points, while Javon Daniels added 13 and Mike McCristian chipped in 12.

"Keenan got hot and we forced like 18 to 20 turnovers in the second half, and we came back," Cornelius said. "This is a good group of character kids. They're polite, they pull for each other, and the fact that they have that confidence to come back, says a lot."

"We're ecstatic that we were able to pull those nice wins out." Cornelius said. "I couldn't ask for a better start to the season."

Yuba College will next have a three-game stretch at the American River College beginning on Dec. 3.