San Benito’s relentless defense holds North Salinas to just two
points in the second quarter
Hollister – San Benito High girls basketball coach Tom Dean had a pretty rough week after his team lost a close game to Gilroy 53-48 to open TCAL play.
But he was all smiles after Thursday’s 62-17 dismantling of the North Salinas Vikings.
“The girls did everything we asked them to do tonight,” Dean said. “They spread the court when they were in transition, their spacing was real good and they made good passes.”
The Balers started the game by going right at the Vikings. Dani Andrewson got a breakaway right off the bat and scored easily. Then Jamie Hall blocked a North Salinas shot before Crystina Osborne stole a pass on the Vikings next possession, resulting in a bucket from Trisha Lee from the outside.
Hall scored on one of her patented post moves to make the score 11-4 later in the quarter and then found Andrewson with a great pass on the Balers’ next trip down the court to make it 13-0 and force North Salinas into taking an early timeout to try and regroup.
Andrewson stepped up her defensive pressure after the Vikings’ timeout and forced a bad pass that was picked off by Lee, who went the length of the floor for an easy deuce. Lee got another easy score following another San Benito stop to close out the first quarter and put her team up 19-6.
If things were looking bad for the Vikings in the first, they got a little worse in the second.
Johni Kieswetter nailed a deep three-pointer to start the quarter and then Ariel Romero notched four-straight points, two off of free throws and another two off a sweet shot from the outside, pushing the Hollister margin to 26-6.
Hall continued to deny North Salinas of anything resembling an open shot, stuffing Elizabeth Fleming and getting the ball out to cortney Almaguer, who just missed an outside shot but Kieswetter was there to put it back in.
This brought about another desperate timeout from the Vikings and, once again, the Balers didn’t let up at all following the break in action.
Osborne began to wow the Hollister crowd with her best impression of Dennis Rodman, grabbing three offensive boards in one series off her own shots down low with defenders all over her before getting the ball on the wing and putting it in, getting fouled in the process.
“She has come on so much in the last three or four weeks,” said Dean of Osborne’s play. “She is so strong for her size and she can really jump. There isn’t anybody who’s going to get that ball away from her once she goes up and gets her hands on it.”
Osborne converted the three-point play and then made a great play to snatch an errant North Salinas pass that was going out of bounds, sending it up the court for Jennifer Anaya, who put a nice stroke on an outside shot and got fouled in the process. Anaya went to the line, where the Haybalers were 11-19 on the night, and put the bonus shot away to give her team a 38-8 advantage and effectively put the game out of reach for the Vikings.
The second half ended on that score. The Balers’ defense had managed to hold the visitors to just two points over eight minutes.
“It was a dynamite game for us all the way around,” Dean said. “The girls were in control the whole time, no matter who was on the floor. They played very well together and the flow we had didn’t change no matter who was in. And that’s very important. I was just very pleased with the attitude and the play of the girls.”
