{"id":54626,"date":"2025-05-24T21:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T21:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/54626\/"},"modified":"2025-05-24T21:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T21:54:11","slug":"arcatas-vallerga-commits-to-play-basketball-at-college-of-the-redwoods-times-standard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/54626\/","title":{"rendered":"Arcata\u2019s Vallerga commits to play basketball at College of the Redwoods \u2013 Times-Standard"},"content":{"rendered":"

The College of the Redwoods\u2019 men\u2019s basketball team added some local talent on Friday, with Arcata High\u2019s Dawson Vallerga, a former Tigers\u2019 guard, becoming the third addition to the CR roster this offseason.<\/p>\n

Vallerga joins guard Jackson Bluhm and Mitchell McMahan as CR commits for the upcoming season, which will be the first for Justin Claus as CR\u2019s head coach after several years with the staff. Claus\u2019 and Vallerga\u2019s paths first crossed when Claus was only beginning his coaching career, working with Vallerga when he was still in middle school, along with Montana commit and Vallerga\u2019s high school teammate, Luke Moxon.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that point, for me personally, I was just getting into coaching and just getting out of playing,\u201d Claus said, who played collegiately at both CR and then-Humboldt State University. \u201cDawson was kind of pushing me to be a better coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Claus recalls Vallerga being such a quick learner that he needed to evolve as a coach to prevent the players from getting a \u201clittle bored,\u201d but perhaps that spoke more to Vallerga\u2019s advanced feel for the game rather than Claus\u2019 coaching. Six years later, the two will reunite at College of the Redwoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty cool opportunity to circle back and hopefully be able to push him for the next few years,\u201d Claus said of Vallerga. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to find players that have a craftiness nowadays, that represents how much they just feel basketball. There\u2019s a lot of training and a lot of ways you can improve yourself as a basketball player, but it\u2019s really hard to just increase the feel and the craftiness that comes with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Vallerga\u2019s three years with varsity, Arcata won the league title each year (splitting the 2024 Big 5 title with McKinleyville) and winning the 2024 Dick Niclai Tournament. Vallerga\u2019s senior season was cut short however, with a high ankle sprain late in the regular season, keeping him out all postseason, but he\u2019s expecting his ankle to be ready to go by the time CR practices start in July.<\/p>\n

\"ArcataArcata High senior Dawson Vallerga rises for a layup against McKinleyville this past season. Vallerga becomes the latest Tigers’ basketball player to play at CR. (Dylan McNeill\/Times-Standard)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was definitely hard to get through. I still feel it today,\u201d Vallerga said of his ankle. \u201cI\u2019m still doing PT work, but also just building up strength in it and also the whole side of my leg, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Claus has seen Vallerga develop as a player, Vallerga has seen similar growth from his new head coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cJustin\u2019s just the right fit. Basketball is his second language,\u201d Vallerga said. \u201cI remember him being an assistant at Humboldt and he was just doing it for free, which is pretty cool, and he was still training me at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

During his time with the Tigers, Vallerga got to share the court with three different Big 5 MVPs so playing beside talent won\u2019t be something new for him which is good news for CR, who will be returning two All-Golden Valley Conference First Team players with Alfonso Medina and Ty Dahlin both entering their sophomore season with CR.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve kind of played that role my whole life on every team I\u2019ve been on.\u201d Vallerga said, citing that he\u2019s been alongside the D-I-bound Moxon for most of his basketball career.<\/p>\n

\"CRCR commit Dawson Vallerga (right) stands next to Montana basketball commit Luke Moxon (left) at Vallerga’s signing on Friday. (Dylan McNeill\/Times-Standard)<\/p>\n

Not only is Vallerga a worthy addition for the Redwoods, it continues the tradition of CR having an Arcata alum on the roster, which is something that has become a common occurrence for the program in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s something about having an Arcata guy,\u201d Claus said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have an Arcata guy last year, we did every other year. It just feels right. It feels like there should be an Arcata guy on the roster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Staying local with CR also allows Vallerga the opportunity to have his friends and family be able to attend all his home games, which is something that\u2019s important to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad is my biggest supporter. He shows up to every game, and I see him in the stands. It\u2019s something that\u2019s a comfort thing,\u201d Vallerga said. \u201cI love this floor here. It\u2019s got a good community feeling here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dylan McNeill can be reached at 707-441-0526.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The College of the Redwoods\u2019 men\u2019s basketball team added some local talent on Friday, with Arcata High\u2019s Dawson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[14130,7,160,14129,325,14131,1931,3255,14132,165,2679,4251,11167,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-54626","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-arcata","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-college-of-the-redwoods","12":"tag-college-sports","13":"tag-eureka","14":"tag-high-school-basketball","15":"tag-high-school-sports","16":"tag-humboldt-county","17":"tag-latest-headlines","18":"tag-local-news","19":"tag-local-sports","20":"tag-newsletter","21":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114565039102725567","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}