Channel Islands, Thousand Oaks to Meet in Final

Channel Islands High defeated Camarillo, 49-42, on Thursday night to advance to the final of the Thousand Oaks girls’ basketball tournament in a game that neither team seemed to want to win until the fourth quarter.

Channel Islands will play Thousand Oaks at 8 tonight in the championship game.

After making 7 of 13 field-goal attempts in the final period, Channel Islands wound up shooting 34% (18 of 53) from the field for the game. Camarillo (8-2) made 15 of 42 field-goal attempts, including 6 in the fourth period, and turned the ball over 23 times.

“Stuff that worked against them the first time we played didn’t work,” Channel Islands Coach Ryle Lynch-Cole said. “We threw out everything we worked on for this game after the first quarter.”

In the first meeting between the teams, in the championship game of the Oxnard tournament, Channel Islands won, 53-33.

In Thursday’s rematch, Camarillo (8-2) closed the gap to 3 points 3 times in the second half but was able to get no closer.

Guard Nichole Victoria scored a game-high 18 points for Camarillo and Ytteb Bowls led Channel Islands (11-3) with 11 points.

In the other semifinal:

Thousand Oaks 57, Las Vegas Rancho 42--Shani Smyth scored a game-high 27 points and teammate Amy Chandler added 17, including 9 in the third quarter, as the Lancers advanced to the tournament final.

The leading scorer for Rancho (7-2) was Revonda Whitley, a 5-foot, 9-inch junior who fouled out with 6:22 to play after scoring 14 points. Rams Coach Mike Dye was called for a technical for arguing the foul, and Smyth converted the free throws to give the Lancers (12-1) a 47-38 lead.

Thousand Oaks went into halftime leading, 30-26, but the Rams closed the gap to 31-30 on Alicia Taylor’s shot with less than 5 minutes left in the third quarter.