From College of the Redwoods
Women Score 89 in Loss to COS
By Sean Quincey/Times-Standard
Feb 9, 2009, 08:56
Inside their locker room, the Lady Corsairs cheered, clapped and congratulated each other after Saturday's home basketball game against Siskiyous. Not because they had won the game -- they lost 99-89 -- but because these undermanned underdogs claimed several other victories through the course of the game.
Redwoods, which has just seven players on its roster, led Siskiyous for most of the first half. A suffocating and tiring full-court press gave the Eagles a lead it never relinquished, but CR used its own full-court press and mounted several comebacks the rest of the way.
Each run gave the Corsairs a personal triumph, the sum of which had the potential to equal an upset.
”It feels like we won tonight,” said CR guard Shylo Wantt, who had a game-high 28 points and eight 3-pointers. “We only have seven players, but every game we finish strong no matter what.”
Five players did all the scoring for CR. Angela Fitzhugh had 22, forward Hannah Hurley was very effective against the Eagles' tall post players and she ended up with a career-high 17 points. Jessica Ammon and Amanda Malfatti each scored 11 points.
CR started strong. It was the end of the first half and the first few minutes of the second that put them in a hole.
The Corsairs came out in a full-court press and hit three of their first six 3s. Siskiyous committed 9 turnovers in the opening 10 minutes and CR had just six. A 3-pointer by Wantt with 10:37 left put Redwoods up 26-19,
That's when the Eagles' defense started to clamp down and create easy buckets. For the rest of the first half, CR had trouble even getting the ball in-bounds, and when it did, the guards often turned the ball over trying to pass through traps.
It was on one of those sequences that Siskiyous took the lead for good.
One possession after Malfatti threw a pass out of bounds trying to work her way out of a double team, Siskiyous' 6-foot-6 center Leah Swain simply reached over a defender to haul in an in-bounds pass and scored an easy bucket and put the Eagles up 34-32 with 5:55 left in the half.
Redwoods fought back, however, and neither team scored for the next two minutes. But when Siskiyous' Cassidy Hammon nailed a 3 with 3:33 left in the first, it helped stretch a 28-2 run that ended early in the second half and put a big dent in CR's comeback plans.
”We did a good job breaking their press early, but they trapped Angela and we had a hard time getting the ball in-bounds,” CR head coach Kara Newman said. “We put Angela as our in-bounds passer and that helped, it got her with more momentum heading up court. But their press gave us trouble.”
CR committed 20 turnovers in the first half and 33 on the game. Its defense -- which used a full-court press, fatigue be damned -- returned the favor with 14 steals. Siskiyous had 29 turnovers in all.
Siskiyous got 26 points from Crissy Watts, 22 from Jennifer Whipple and 19 from forward Jazmine McDaniel. Swain had eight. Siskiyous went 23-of-25 from the line.
Down 89-69 with just under six minutes left, the Corsairs mounted a final comeback that .had them one missed jumper at the buzzer from making it a single-digit ball game. What's most noteworthy about the run is that Siskiyous left its starters in until about the two-minute mark when CR was already within 12.
During that five-plus minute stretch Redwoods made its trademark hustle plays, epitomized by Wantt and Ammon, who both went diving for a ball on a missed foul shot with about1:40 left. Plus, CR committed just one turnover in that final stretch.
”If teams want to take us for granted because we have seven gils, go ahead,” Newman said. “I feel like we can go toe-to-toe with anybody in our conference. If we put together a complete 40 minutes, we're going to knock off a Lassen, or a Shasta or Butte.
”It gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.”
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