Defense sets tone for Flintridge Prep girls’ basketball
LA CAÑADA — It’s been nearly four weeks since the Flintridge Prep girls’ basketball team opened Prep League play and defense of its four straight championships.
In that game Dec. 11, the Rebels cruised to a 21-point victory against Westridge and hadn’t played in another league contest since.
That was until Thursday evening, when Flintridge Prep took the floor against the same opponent — Westridge.
The rematch turned out to be an even more lopsided result for the Rebels, who forced 28 turnovers and held the Tigers to single digits scoring in all four quarters to earn a 64-22 win at home.
“Playing Westridge twice, we are kind of looking forward to seeing what the other teams in league might have in store,” said Kevin Kiyomura, who is the Rebels co-coach along with Jayme Chan. “Some of the other teams in league have done some good things, so we are excited to see how we will do against them.”
Flintridge Prep (10-5, 2-0 in league) is attempting to win its fifth consecutive league title with a young squad. Against Westridge (1-8, 0-2), the Rebels started three sophomores and two juniors.
“It’s still a learning and maturation process with this team,” Kiyomura said. “That’s why we’ve had some games where we’ve looked really good and some times where we’ve looked really bad.
“It’s just a matter of them playing together and getting a feel for where they belong.”
It was a sophomore and freshman who paced the Rebels on Thursday. Sophomore Kaitlyn Chen led all scorers with 15 points to go along with six rebounds and freshman Sofia Gonzalez came off the bench to tally 14 points and three steals.
Westridge scored the first two points of the game, but that would be the only lead of the contest for the visitors. The Rebels went on an 11-0 run to take an 11-2 advantage with 2:45 remaining.
Flintridge Prep finished the first quarter, in which it helped cause 11 turnovers, on a 19-2 clip to lead, 19-4.
“We do work a lot on our defense, so that’s big with us,” Chen said. “We take a lot of pride in our defense and boxing out and our rebounding, those are really important to us. We also like pushing the ball up.”
Flintridge Prep continued to thrive in the second quarter, outscoring Westridge, 21-8, to take a 40-12 lead into halftime.
With their starters on the bench, the Rebels were still able to outscore the Tigers, 10-7, in the third quarter and headed into the final stanza up by 31, 50-19.
Westridge missed all nine of its shots from the field in the fourth quarter and the Rebels went up by 40, 60-20, with 4:28 remaining, prompting a running clock.
Sophomore Alex Kyriakakis chipped in with eight points and six rebounds and sophomore Olivia Stevens had eight points, all in the second half, for the Rebels.
Twitter: @jefftsports
