Crescenta Valley girls’ basketball cuts down Knight
LA CRESCENTA —Three quarters of dominant play on both ends of the floor has the Crescenta Valley High girls’ basketball team in the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division I-A playoffs, where they will stay home to face Camarillo on Saturday.
Against visiting Knight in Thursday night’s first round matchup, the Falcons nullified a slow start and forgettable first quarter to take control of the game and cruise to a 50-36 victory.
“We just couldn’t make shots,” said 11th-year Falcons Coach Jason Perez, whose team made three of 20 field goal attempts and trailed by five after the first quarter. “It had a little to do with nerves, but then we got into the flow. Our defense started putting pressure and once we got the lead, we knew we were going to be OK.”
Perez coached the Falcons (20-9) to the quarterfinals last season and found a correlation between the previous two first-round games.
“Last year we started fast and slowed down; this year we started slow and then got it going,” he said. “We needed to get the first one out of the way.”
Alisa Shinn, who missed six of her first seven attempts, scored all seven points for Crescenta Valley in the opening frame, including the final two at the buzzer that sparked a 12-0 game-altering run spanning the latter stages of the first until midway through the second.
“The missed shots, I think it’s because we over think before games,” said Shinn, who led the Falcons with 22 points, 14 rebounds and five assists. “We try to think about what might happen in the game, but we got over it after a couple minutes.”
Crescenta Valley used a pair of extended runs over the second and third quarters to put the game away. After Knight’s Sasha Duckett connected on a three-pointer late in the first quarter to give the Hawks a 12-5 lead, the Falcons responded by scoring 12 unanswered and holding Knight without a basket for more than six minutes until the 4:01 mark of the second quarter. Josie Brock (14 points) hit a three from the left corner to cut the deficit to one and Shinn gave the Falcons their first lead of the game with a strong drive to draw the foul and earn a trip to the stripe where she made both free throws with 2:03 elapsed in the quarter.
The Hawks scored six straight points to stop the run and retake the lead at 18-17, but Shinn quickly answered on the next possession.
Similar to her short jumper off an inbounds that sparked the 12-0 run, Shinn’s basket, which gave the Falcons a 19-18 lead that would not be relinquished, started a 16-0 spurt until midway through the third quarter. Again, the Hawks were unable to score on Crescenta Valley’s defense for nearly the length of one full quarter.
A Duckett steal and breakaway layup stopped the bleeding, but the margin was 13 points in favor of the Falcons, who led, 33-20, at the 4:03 mark of the third quarter and increased it to 17 going into the fourth.
“That middle stretch, I thought we played exceptionally well,” said Perez about of the second and third quarters where the Falcons allowed a total of 12 points.
Shinn and Brock combined for 36 of the team’s 50 points. The two seniors, along with the rest of the Falcons, will look to earn a trip back to the quarterfinals with a win over incoming Camarillo, which defeated Oxnard.
It marks the seventh consecutive win for a Crescenta Valley team that finished the regular season strong and in second in the Pacific League standings.
“We were able to play a lot of players and everyone stepped up,” Perez said. “We did a nice job, it’s not our best win, but we got some work in.”