Crescenta Valley High girls’ basketball struggles against Harvard-Westlake

BURBANK — Crescenta Valley High girls’ basketball Coach Jason Perez could fathom only one positive after his team’s most lopsided loss of the season and it didn’t have to do with anything his team did on the hardwood.

“Outworked, outplayed, out everything,” said Perez after the Falcons dropped the first game of the West Coast Holiday Festival at Burroughs High School. “We out Christmas’d them. They did everything else better.”

Perez attributed the 53-26 loss to Harvard-Westlake Friday evening to the Falcons struggling to do just about everything a basketball team needs to do if it wants to prevail

Struggles on the offensive end, coupled with an irregular rotation led to the Falcons dropping their second consecutive game, as they suffered their lowest scoring output of the season by 15 fewer points than the previous week’s loss to Peninsula.

Crescenta Valley was without junior forward Josie Brock, who is out of the state for the holidays, and her absence was felt against an athletic and intense Wolverines squad that relies on its potent and, at times, relentless defense to create scoring opportunities.

The Falcons, however, were able to penetrate and get good looks at the basket. Converting was another story, partly due to Harvard-Westlake’s 13 blocks and largely due to not connecting on makeable field goals.

“It was about us not executing and not being fundamentally sound,” Perez said. “There was nothing about their defense. We missed a lot of layups.

“When you play poor ‘D’ half the time and only 20 seconds of the shot clock, you’re going to lose. They didn’t do anything we hadn’t seen.”

Harvard-Westlake scored the first seven points of the contest and never trailed, holding the Falcons to two points in the first quarter and led by double-digits from the second quarter on.

The Falcons went into halftime trailing by 18, shortly after Halia Kekahuna did her best to salvage a forgettable half with four points in the final 30 seconds, including a gorgeous post move that shook off the defender, followed by a baseline jumper on the next possession, beating the buzzer.

The second half began similarly to how the game did, with the Wolverines scoring seven unanswered and putting the game away with a 25-point advantage at 37-12. Sammie Lamb scored all five points for the Falcons in the frame.

The Wolverines maintained their level of play throughout the final 16 minutes, preventing any hint of a Crescenta Valley run.

“That’s what we pride ourselves on,” Harvard-Westlake Coach Melissa Hearlihy said. “Individually, we’ve been fine, but we focused on team defense and we did a good job tonight. Positioning and pressuring the ball are two things that will take an offense out of their game.”

In a rare occurrence, Crescenta Valley’s leading scorer Alisa Shinn didn’t reach double figures, and led the team with seven, followed by Poline Megerdichian’s six.

Harvard-Westlake’s Jayla Ruffus-milner’s 14 led all scorers. Lauren Lapesarde and Sydney Tsutsui put in 12 points apiece for a Wolverines squad that will play St. Paul on Saturday as Crescenta Valley takes on Keppel.

“It gets no easier,” Perez said. “We’re going to have to improve on tonight’s game, that’s for sure.”