Cold Hanford Is Icing on Kennedy Cake, 55-34

It was Kennedy High Coach Craig Raub’s 35th birthday on Tuesday, but he really didn’t want to advertise it.

“I told the team I was 25,” Raub said. “Everybody thinks I’m younger anyway. See, no gray hairs.”

Kennedy’s handling of Hanford on Tuesday certainly didn’t have any aging effect on him as the Golden Cougars didn’t allow a point in the first quarter on its way to a 55-34 victory at Granada Hills High in the first round of the girls Division I state playoffs.

The only mystery in this game was exactly where Hanford is located.

“Never heard of ‘em,” said junior guard Tisa Rush, who finished with a game-high 23 points. “I couldn’t even pronounce the name of the school before tonight. Isn’t it located somewhere up near Fresno or Bakersfield?”

Rush was close with her geography. Hanford, which won the CIF Central Section, is located between Bakersfield and Madera, near Visalia.

Rush was even closer with her shots. After a cool second quarter that saw Hanford fight back into the game, Rush was 3 of 4 shooting in the third, putting any thought of a Hanford comeback back on the bus heading north.

Kennedy (23-2), which won its 16th straight, will face Point Loma (31-0) on Thursday at Serra High in San Diego. Point Loma had a first-round bye.

Kennedy raced to a 13-0 lead at the end of the first quarter after Hanford was 0-for-8 shooting. Hanford didn’t score its first field goal until the seven-minute mark of the second period.

But Hanford (18-6), which rallied from a 18-point deficit in its 50-49 win over Reedley that qualified the team for the state playoffs, scored seven of the next nine points to come within 16-7. Hanford trailed, 22-14, at the half.

But Rush and senior forward Diane DeCree found their shooting touch in the second half, and Kennedy scored the first six points to open the third, building a 28-14 lead. Hanford, which shot 28.8% (13 of 45) in the game, missed on 7 of 10 attempts in the period and added 7 turnovers, falling behind 36-22 after three quarters.

“Coach Raub tells me to make sure to take my time, to get set, and to keep on shooting,” Rush said. “So I did.”

DeCree, who will attend Texas A&M; next year, scored 11 of her 21 points in the final quarter as Kennedy outscored Hanford, 19-12.

“I thought if we settled down, we could get right back in it,” said Hanford Coach Walt Parker, a 31-year veteran of coaching who no doubt added a few wrinkles during the game. “They are a really good team. We just didn’t have one of our better games tonight.”

Age was a factor for Hanford, too. Especially its lack of it. The Bullpups started two wide-eyed sophomores, and one of them, Lataria Andrews, scored almost half of the team’s points, finishing with 16. Andrews scored 10 of Hanford’s 14 second-quarter points.

If the team’s poor shooting wasn’t bad enough, Hanford turned the ball over 31 times. Even DeCree, an All-City selection who plays in the middle, swiped four to go with her three blocks and 14 rebounds.

“We didn’t know much abut them,” DeCree said. “We just went with what we are best at, and what we’ve been winning with all year.”

Which is DeCree from the inside and Rush from outside.

DeCree said the team was trying to avoid a reprise of last season, when Kennedy won the City title, only to lose in the first round of the state playoffs.

“I think last year after we won the City we really didn’t look too far ahead,” DeCree said.