Although the regular season is far from over, North Salinas took
one giant leap forward in earning the Tri-County Athletic League
title outright on Thursday night
— a title the Lady Balers have won two years in a row.
With both teams knotted at 38-all with 2:30 remaining, the
Vikings, behind a freak 3-pointer from Amy Woo and a quick first
step by Julia Ashen, outscored the Lady Balers in the waning
minutes 9-2 and held on to earn a key 47-40 victory in the
process.
HOLLISTER
Bag in tow, Victoria Aguilera walked off the floor Thursday night at Hollister’s Mattson Gym looking both exhausted and dejected after a wild back-and-forth contest with North Salinas.
Her expression alone spoke volumes.
“Senior year,” the post player said quietly. “We don’t really have a chance at TCALs anymore, unless they lose and we win most of our games.
“We needed this, and we didn’t get it.”
Although the regular season is far from over, North Salinas took one giant leap forward in earning the Tri-County Athletic League title outright on Thursday night — a title the Lady Balers have won two years in a row.
With both teams knotted at 38-all with 2:30 remaining, the Vikings, behind a freak 3-pointer from Amy Woo and a quick first step by Julia Ashen, outscored the Lady Balers in the waning minutes 9-2 and held on to earn a key 47-40 victory in the process.
“I think our kids played hard,” San Benito head coach David Kaplansky said. “We just struggled with their athleticism when the game mattered most.”
The loss is just San Benito’s second on the season, although both have come against the still-undefeated Vikings (9-0 TCAL). The Lady Balers (6-2 TCAL) fell on the road by a 42-28 margin to North High on Jan. 11, a game in which San Benito’s attack fell silent in the second quarter; they were outscored 10-2.
Generating enough offense wasn’t the problem for San Benito on Thursday, however.
“We had it tied,” guard Cyrena Salinas said. “But then our shots just didn’t fall.”
After North High opened the fourth quarter on a 9-4 run and controlled a 38-33 lead with just more than five minutes remaining, San Benito closed the gap when Aguilera banked in two of her game-high 16 points, and Salinas followed with a three-point play after she was fouled on a long-range jumper from the shoulder.
“We were definitely more offensive this time,” Aguilera said. “We put the ball in the basket a lot more times.”
But the Vikings grabbed the lead for good on the ensuing possession. After the Lady Balers played lockdown defense for 35 seconds, Woo lofted what appeared to be a pick-and-roll pass to Julia Ashen underneath the hoop. Instead, the ball sailed higher and higher until it banked in for a 3-pointer as the shot-clock buzzer sounded.
“With the clock running down … I kept yelling it out to her,” North Salinas head coach Darren Jackson said of the waning shot clock. “But she’s made some key shots before.
“And we made baskets at the right time.”
Once San Benito responded with an Aguilera basket, cutting North High’s lead to 41-40 with 1:37 left, Kaplansky called timeout to not only regroup his players, but question whether Woo’s foot was on the line.
“That was a big shot,” Kaplansky said. “We did a good job defending and forcing them into pretty much a Hail Mary.
“But I just wanted to make sure all the refs talked about it. At that point in the game, one point is a big deal.”
The Vikings made it three points when Ashen displayed a quick first step and drove to the hoop from the perimeter on the very next possession.
Said Aguilera, “They’re clutch.”
At least on offense. On defense, North High pushed the Lady Balers out toward the perimeter and forced low-percentage shots in the closing minutes, holding San Benito two just two points in the last two minutes of regulation.
“We had a hard time getting the ball to the block,” Kaplansky said.
“I felt they dictated the last two and a half to three minutes of the game. I felt the kids played hard. But at the end, they have a more skilled and athletic team this year … We’ve got to find a way to beat a better team.”
Said Salinas, “We don’t want to have this feeling all over again.”
Although the back-and-forth first half resulted in a 21-21 tie at halftime, San Benito opened the third quarter on an 8-2 run after Nicole Rianda nailed a baseline jumper in transition to give the Lady Balers a 29-23 lead.
But Woo sunk a mid-range shot for two of her team-high 14 points to end the Vikings’ four-minute drought, while the Lady Balers went cold for the remainder of the quarter.
North High then closed out the third on a 6-0 run, finishing the period when Taryn Winfield forced a turnover and went the length of the floor for an easy lay-in just before the buzzer.
She finished with 10 points.
The momentum carried over to the fourth quarter where the Vikings built a six-point lead behind the free-throw shooting of Brionna Sullen.
“We got our big girl in the post back, and she helped out a lot,” Jackson said of Sullen, who just returned on Tuesday after suffering a broken foot.
“But our defense picked up a little bit (in the fourth quarter) … We started switching on them and that kind of threw them off a little bit … But every time we play this team, it’s tough.”
With North Salinas back in Division I after playing in Division II last season — the school’s enrollment dropped slightly below the D-I cutoff — the Central Coast Section playoffs should become all the more interesting this year.
And members on both sides foresee Thursday night’s crazy league showdown as a mere appetizer.
“I expect to see them again,” Jackson said. “I’m not looking forward to seeing them again, but I expect to see them again.”
Said Aguilera, “I do expect to see them in CCS. Hopefully, it’ll be a better ending.”
Notes:
San Benito shot 35 percent (14 of 40) from the field and 100 percent (9 of 9) from the free-throw line … North Salinas shot 40 percent (17 of 43) from the field and 83 percent (10 of 12) from the free-throw line … the Lady Balers committed 15 turnovers … the Vikings committed 14 turnovers … San Benito (17-3 overall) will visit Gilroy on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
TEAM 1 2 3 4 F
NSAL 15 6 8 18 47
SANB 13 8 8 11 40
North Salinas (47): J. Rowland 2-6 0-0 4, M. Campbell 1-2 0-0 2, T. Osborne 1-1 0-0 2, T. Winfield 4-10 2-2 10, A. Woo 5-11 2-2 14, A. Ayala 2-7 0-0 5, B. Sullen 0-1 3-4 3, J. Ashen 2-4 3-4 7.
Three-point goals: A. Woo 2, A. Ayala 1.
San Benito (40): C. Salinas 2-8 1-1 6, V. Aguilera 5-12 6-6 16, M. Vallejo 1-2 0-0 2, E. Glasspool 3-9 0-0 8, N. Rianda 3-6 2-2 8.
Three-point goals: C. Salinas 1, E. Glasspool 2.
JV Note:
The San Benito Lady Balers lost to visiting North Salinas 34-13 on Thursday in Tri-County Athletic League action at Hollister’s Mattson Gym.
San Benito is now 12-5 overall and 4-4 in the TCAL.
“We’re just not executing very well,” San Benito head coach Karen Fortino said.
The Vikings controlled an 11-2 lead after one quarter and a 21-6 lead at halftime.
“We’re not getting underneath the boards and getting rebounds to either provide getting the ball back or getting second or third shot opportunities,” Fortino added.
Fortino did highlight the play of Lady Balers Kayla Ortiz and Tawne Haynish.
“I was happy with their effort,” she said.
San Benito will return to the floor on Tuesday when they will visit Gilroy at 5:30 p.m.
TEAM 1 2 3 4 F
NSAL 11 10 6 7 34
SANB 2 4 2 5 13
