GIRLS’ BASKETBALL ROUNDUP : La Quinta Keeps Streak Alive With 62-59 Victory

La Quinta High School Coach Kevin Kiernan last lost a Garden Grove League girls’ basketball game five years ago to Garden Grove High School.

Nobody has come close since, until this season. For the second time this season, Rancho Alamitos played the Aztecs close but La Quinta prevailed, this time 62-59 at home Friday.

“You want my job?” Kiernan asked after the game. “I’ll pay you to take it,” he said, joking. “The first one was just like this.”

When the teams met in the first round of league play this season, La Quinta escaped with a 62-60 overtime victory.

The Vaqueros got 29 points Friday from guard Jenny Newsome and 11 points from guard Shellie Tsuji. But the taller La Quinta team had a better-balanced attack to extend its league winning streak to 49 games.

The Aztecs (18-2 overall, 9-0 in league play) moved two games ahead of Rancho Alamitos (12-3, 7-2).

“I’m so proud of our girls,” Vaquero Coach Bob Becker said. “They never let down. I really felt there were two winners tonight.”

La Quinta’s Amy Jalewalia, who was benched Wednesday against Pacifica for lackluster effort at practice, played intense basketball through four quarters against the Vaqueros, scoring 28 points.

But Heather Brannan and Tanya Krill were the keys for La Quinta. Brannan, who responded with 37 points in Jalewalia’s absence against Pacifica, scored 18 points Friday.

Krill, who was on crutches Thursday after suffering strained ligaments in her left ankle against Pacifica, hit key perimeter jump shots when the Vaqueros packed their zone in on Jalewalia and Brannan. Krill scored 10 points.

“The doctor told her she (Krill) would be out for two weeks,” Kiernan said. “She said the heck with that. I’m going to tape it up and give it a shot. She hit some big ones for us. We wouldn’t have won without her.”

La Quinta scored most of its first-half points going over the top of the Vaqueros’ full-court pressure for layups to take a 36-32 halftime lead.

“We broke down,” Becker said. “There is a girl who is supposed to be back there (on defense), but I don’t think that was the difference in the game. Krill and Brannan: I said before the game their outside shooting could hurt us.

“But we went with the percentages. We said hey, we’ll take our chances with them hitting outside shots when they are tired. It was a physically draining game, and we hoped they would be too tired to make them. We knew they would make them inside with their size advantage.”