For the first two quarters of San Benito’s opening game of the Watsonville Wildcatz Invitational on Thursday, the Balers looked like they would be position to win the first game of the Mitch Burley era.
But then St. Francis C.C. Catholic started to make its open shots.
Led by 25 points from St. Francis senior Ana Lasich, the Sharks, 4-0, pulled away from the Balers, 0-2, in the third quarter to win the opening game of the weekend invitational 49-32.
At halftime, the Balers led 19-18 thanks to strong second-quarter defense and a good first half by junior Ellie Burley, who scored six points. But the second half was a different story for San Benito.
Using a zone defense, the Sharks closed the San Benito passing lanes and forced the Balers to shoot from the outside. Even with open looks, the Balers struggled to find the bucket and points – scoring 13 second-half points.
Defensively, the Balers moved from a zone defense to man-to-man thanks to the strong shooting from St. Francis.
“Conventional wisdom says when you have a good shooting team, you play man-to-man,” Mitch Burley said. “That didn’t really work for us today.”
In the second half, Lasich continued to find open looks after St. Francis would drive to the bucket and kick the ball out to the sharp shooter. Lasich buried five second-half 3-point shots to help the Sharks pull away.
Overall, the Sharks hit nine 3-point shots.
“There isn’t much you can do when they keep making those shots,” Burley said.
Lasich fired 21 shots on the night – burying nine of them – to pace the Sharks offense.
With the Sharks defensive scheme clamping down on the Balers inside game, San Benito relied on eight points from Madeleine LePore and six points form Kelsey Robledo, who struggled to find open shots all night.
San Benito’s only scoring run of the game came in the second quarter. Led by their defense – which limited the Sharks to only six points – San Benito used it’s opportunities to score 10 points. It was the only quarter that the Balers scored in double digits thanks to the Sharks stifling zone defense.
“We haven’t really practiced against the zone,” LePore said. “We need to work on it.”
In the loss, San Benito did not have a player score into double digits. Despite the score and the offensive output, Burley was proud of the improvement he saw in the team from it’s season-opening loss.
“We are getting better,” he said. “This is a step we need to take.”
San Benito now moves to the consolation bracket of the Wildcatz Invitational. The Balers will play Christopher at 3:30 p.m. Friday in Watsonville.
Christopher opened the invitational with a 65-35 loss to Santa Cruz on Thursday.
San Benito – 9 10 8 5 – 32
St. Francis – 12 6 18 13 – 49
