EMPIRE LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Titus Helps Loara Beat Los Alamitos, Keep Hopes Alive

Loara High School made it look pretty easy for the first quarter Thursday night against Los Alamitos. But the Saxons made it look awfully tough the rest of the way before finally keeping at least their statistical shot at an Empire League girls’ basketball title alive with a 59-51 victory at home.

Loara is 9-10 overall and 2-3 in league play. Los Alamitos drops to 4-13, 0-5.

The two teams, currently in the bottom half of the league standings, feature the county’s top young centers in Loara junior Traci Titus and Los Alamitos sophomore Allison Arredondo.

Titus used her quickness and experience to get the better of their match-up Thursday. She was seven of 12 shooting for 15 points and had eight rebounds and four blocked shots.

It was Titus’ quickness on defense and her more-experienced supporting cast that helped turn the game in Loara’s favor. Los Alamitos starts no seniors. Titus continually picked off or deflected post passes to Arredondo to finish with eight steals. She limited Arredondo to three first-half points, but Arredondo is not the county’s second leading scorer (at 25 points per game) for nothing.

She used her own exceptional mobility and agility to score 19 second-half points and finish with 23. Many of her points came when Titus was out of the lineup with foul trouble or for a rest. But Titus was able to score over Arredondo.

“She was tough,” Arredondo said of Titus. “When you play somebody as good as you are or better than you, you’re going to get better. I’m not deathly afraid of anybody. I accept the challenge and I want the challenge because I know I’ll get better.”

Loara opened up a 15-0 lead, holding Los Alamitos scoreless for the first 10 minutes before Cindy Yamasaki hit one of her four three-pointers.

Loara led by as much as 20-3 late in the second quarter, and the game began to look like a blowout until Los Alamitos went on a 12-1 run to trail 21-15 at the half.

“We make games close,” Loara Coach Gary Blate said. “We turned over the ball too many times and the three-point shot, that will get you back in a game.”

Los Alamitos’ Yamasaki sisters, Cindy and Tritia, accounted for seven of the 12 points in the run. Cindy Yamasaki’s three-pointer with about four minutes to play in the third quarter cut the lead to 25-21, but that was as close as Los Alamitos would get.

Jennifer Leonard got hot from outside for the Saxons, along with Kristen Thibodeau, who scored 13 second-half points.

“We played a great second half, but we are a young, inexperienced team and things like this will happen,” Los Alamitos Coach Al Gragnano said.

One bright spot for Los Alamitos was freshman Cindy Yamasaki. In her second game back after fracturing her wrist in late December, she had 18 points.

In other Empire League games:

Esperanza 50, Katella 31--Jennifer Harney, Kim Kordik and Andrea Warmus combined for 44 points to lead Esperanza (14-3, 5-0) at Esperanza. Harney had 17, including three three-pointers, and Kordik had 16 with 12 rebounds. Warmus added 11 points, 10 coming in the final quarter when Esperanza outscored Katella, 22-6, to break open a close game. Karen Jensen had 14 points for Katella, which trailed, 28-25, at the end of three quarters.

Cypress 66, El Dorado 54--Stacie Kosaka had 23 points and Sheryl Murakoshi 22 to lead Cypress (11-8, 4-1) in a game at El Dorado. Frances Oda had seven assists and six steals for Cypress.