Girls Basketball : Lynwood, Led by Jackson, Surges to Beat Buena, 59-51

The shots finally started falling for the Lynwood High School girls just when they needed them most--the fourth quarter--and the Knights won the battle of the state’s top-ranked prep girls’ basketball teams, 59-51, Saturday night at Buena.

Lynwood was top-ranked in the state by Cal-Hi sports newsletter in its preseason poll. Buena was second-ranked.

Most important for Lynwood (10-1) in its late surge was the scoring of junior guard Trise Jackson, who responded with 12 points in the second half after being held to 2 in the first.

Two baskets loomed large for Jackson and the Knights. The first was a 20-foot jump shot at the third-quarter buzzer, giving Lynwood a 42-37 lead.

The second was a fast-break layup that put the Knights ahead, 52-46, with 3:26 left in the game.

Both baskets swung the momentum away from the pesky Bulldogs. Though Buena closed to 52-51 with 2:06 left, it could not overtake the Knights.

“I told the players that we can’t let her (Jackson) have the ball in those situations,” Buena Coach Joe Vaughan said.

Jackson and freshman forward Linda Watson, who scored 15 points, would have been enough for Buena to overcome, but missed free throws also hurt.

Buena, which was led by senior center Teresa Palmisano’s 24 points, made only 4 of 11 free throws in the fourth quarter. The Bulldogs (5-1) made only 19 of 32 for the game, and Lynwood made just 13 of 26.

In the fourth quarter, Lynwood put on a full-court press.

“We wanted to make their people work for their shots,” said Lynwood Coach Van Girard, whose team had trailed at halftime, 28-27. “We wanted to run time--10-15 seconds--off the 30-second shot clock.”

It worked, and so did everything else Lynwood did in the late going.