Orange County Girls’ Basketball : Battle of Unbeatens Is No Contest : Katella Beats Los Alamitos to Take Empire League Lead

What figured to be a big game, turned into a bust Tuesday night as the Katella High School girls’ basketball team defeated Los Alamitos, 55-43, Tuesday night in an Empire League game at Katella.

Each team entered the game 6-0 in the Empire League. Katella is now 7-0 and in sole possession of first place after one round of competition. Los Alamitos is all by itself in second.

After a close first quarter, Katella (16-2) dominated Los Alamitos (10-5) using a full-court press and a man defense that bordered on the frantic.

The Knights held Los Alamitos scoreless through the first five minutes. They forced 18 first-half turnovers and 29 for the game.

Katella trapped Los Alamitos guards outside, and collapsed on the Griffins front line players inside.

The technical name of this thoroughly ingenuous defense?

“We call it our scramble defense,” said Mickey McAulay, Katella coach.

Los Alamitos managed to get close in the first quarter, tying the score at 8-8 on a layup by Jennifer Ensley with 15 seconds left in the quarter.

But Sernda Valdez, who scored 10 points, made a jump shot with three seconds left to put Katella ahead at the end of the first quarter, 10-8.

The Valdez shot was a bad omen for Los Alamitos. The Griffins would be outscored 16-6 in the second quarter, and Katella would go ahead 26-14 by halftime.

Katella’s Kelli Johnson, who had a game-high 22 points, scored six in the second quarter. The majority of Katella’s points came after steals.

“I though our defense was outstanding,” McAulay said. “It was baseline to baseline, sideline to sideline. I think it was the critical factor.”

Midway through the third quarter any hopes Los Alamitos had of winning this game were in critical condition and fading fast.

Katella outscored Los Alamitos 15-8 in the third. It was a quarter that looked surprisingly like the second. Defense, flying Katella bodies, mounting Los Alamitos turnovers.

The Griffins made seven turnovers in the third quarter and Katella built 21-point leads twice.

Kennedy 42, Esperanza 39--Ursula Lovely made two free throws with 13 seconds remaining at Kennedy to help the Irish defeat the Aztecs for the first time in the school’s history. Lovely scored 20 points and grabbed 15 rebounds for Kennedy (5-2, 7-6), which moved into third place. Esperanza dropped to 4-3 in league.

Cypress 51, Loara 50--Liz Crosdale’s basket with 20 seconds remaining gave the Centurions a 51-50 lead, and Cypress forced a Saxon turnover in the final seconds to preserve the victory at Cypress. Diane Pohl scored 17 points and Shawn Murakoshi had 15 points for the Centurions, while Loara was led by Carolyn Osata, who scored a game-high 24 points.