Halftime score: 5-5
Knights subdue upset-minded Griffins, 16-8
The winless International girls junior varsity basketball team battled Cambridge point for point until the middle of the third period, but the little Lady Knights pulled away at the end to win 16-8.
The game started slowly. The score was 1-1 at the end of the first quarter, and 5-5 at the end of the half, as neither team had much luck putting the ball in the basket. Things stayed close in the third quarter, though Cambridge was able to take the lead, 9-7.
In the fourth period Cambridge's Lucia Candia asserted herself, scoring five of the seven points Cambridge tallied in that quarter.
Candia had a total of nine points in the game. Natalia Johnson added five, and Lisa Delboy had 2. Cambridge had only five players at the game, and benefited from competent performances by fifth graders Patricia Zhou and Amaya Yañez.
For International, Gabriela Garcia had four points, Dimitria Witteveen had two, while Diana Salman and Andrea Barron had one point each.
And it could have been closer!
Eagles wreak vengeance, beat Jags 20-19
The usual large crowd at the Christian Learning gym had to hold its collective breath at the end while a Cooperative player missed two free throws after time had run out, but then could celebrate the Eagles hard-fought victory over the previously undefeated Jaguars.
The Eaglettes seemed much better prepared than during the first meeting between the two teams, which Cooperative had won in convincing style, 22-15. Eagle coach Bob Friesen had two players, Catherine Newman and Jessica Smith assigned to try to shut down the Jaguars high scorer, Ana Paula Peredo, and they held Peredo to four points, none of them in the second half. Friesen said the improved play of Mariella Salinas was a key factor in the victory.
Jaguar coach Misty Skidmore shrugged and and turned her palms upward after the loss. "What can I say?," she said. "They were the better team today. We just couldn't get any shots off." She declined to complain about the fact that several of her players have been moved up to the varsity. "We have to learn to win on this basis," she said. And she had praise for the play of Hailey White and Audrey Saucedo in the losing cause.
Cooperative got out to an 8-4 lead in the first period, but by halftime the score was knotted at 12-12. The stalemate continued through the third quarter, which ended 16-16. Two baskets by Talley Friesen in the fourth quarter gave the Eagles the 20 points they needed to win, while the Jaguars could only come up with a field goal by White and a free throw by Saucedo in the concluding stanza, thereby falling a point short.
Friesen led the Eagle scorers with ten points in total, followed by Salinas with six. Jesse Kennedy and Rachel Moss had a field goal each.
For Cooperative, White had 10 points and Peredo, as mentioned, had four. Luciana Adriazola and Giovanna Varalta each had a basket, and Saucedo had one point.
