Melissa Weckerle scored a game-high 18 points, 10 of which came
in the first quarter, and the Anzar Hawks built an early lead and
never looked back en route to a 32-19 victory over Georgiana Bruce
Kirby on Thursday.
SAN JUAN BAUTISTA
The Coastal Athletic League matchup between Anzar and Kirby on Thursday night in San Juan Bautista came down to simple difference: Early on, Hawks point guard Melissa Weckerle didn’t miss.
“She took over,” Anzar head coach Mike Bonomi said. “I’ve been telling her to be more aggressive and to take the ball to the hole, and she did that.”
Weckerle scored a game-high 18 points, 10 of which came in the first quarter, and the Anzar Hawks built an early lead and never looked back en route to a 32-19 victory over Georgiana Bruce Kirby on Thursday.
Weckerle shot 8 of 13 from the field in the game — 5 of 6 in the first quarter — and helped the Hawks jump out to a 14-4 lead in the opening stanza. Teammate Kelsey Robledo chimed in with 11 points and seven rebounds — the two players scoring 29 of Anzar’s 32 points.
Jackie Quaresma sunk a 3-pointer to round out the Hawks’ scoring.
“It was huge,” Bonomi said of the win. “It was great to see.”
It was Anzar’s third straight victory and second straight over Kirby; the Hawks defeated the Santa Cruz preparatory school on Tuesday by a 29-21 margin.
Anzar was scheduled to square off against Anchorpoint Christian on Thursday, although the Warriors postponed the match due to a lack of players, and Bonomi managed to schedule Kirby in their place instead.
And while it took the Hawks until the third quarter on Tuesday to build any sort of lead on Kirby — they led 15-5 entering the final period — Anzar’s 10-point cushion after eight minutes of play on Thursday proved to be the difference.
Over the remaining three quarters of play, Anzar outscored Kirby by a narrow 18-15 margin.
“The rest of the three quarters, we were human,” said Bonomi, referring to Anzar’s strong first quarter of play in which the Hawks shot 7 of 11 from the field. “But it was Senior Night, they were really happy and it was good to see.”
Anzar’s lone senior, Sabrina Gonzalez, was honored before the game.
The Hawks’ 14-point explosion in the first quarter was perhaps a result of Kirby coming out in a man-to-man defense, a set Anzar doesn’t often see too much.
“Finally we see a man defense, and [Weckerle] took advantage of it,” Bonomi said.
Kirby’s switch to a zone defense following the first quarter slowed the Hawks down some, but Anzar’s early lead held up in the end. Kirby was unable to crack the Hawks’ 1-3-1 zone, and were held to single-digit point totals in each of the four quarters as a result.
“We just hustled back and played good ‘D,'” Bonomi said.
The Hawks improve to 6-2 in the Coastal Athletic League and 8-10 overall, and remain in second place in the league behind Pacific Collegiate.
Anzar will visit York on Tuesday.
TEAM 1 2 3 4 F
GBK 4 5 2 8 19
ANZ 14 8 2 8 32
Anzar (32): M. Weckerle 8-13 0-0 18, K. Robledo 5-17 1-2 11, J. Quaresma 1-2 0-0 3.
Three-point goals: M. Weckerle 2, J. Quaresma 1.
