Canyons States Case by Routing Valley, 80-55

Kyetra Brown scored 14 of her 20 points in the second half and the College of the Canyons defeated Valley, 80-55, Saturday night in a Southern California Regional women’s basketball bracket final.

The Cougars (31-4) advance to the state tournament next Thursday through Saturday in San Jose.

The Cougars, who prefer a fast tempo, had to settle for a 28-17 lead at the half while dealing with numerous fouls and turnovers. There were 42 turnovers in the game and five players fouled out.

Canyons Coach Greg Herrick finally devised a strategy in the second half to isolate Brown, and it worked.

“That was a horrible [first] half,” Brown said. “They knew what to do, because they’ve seen us before. It’s always harder when you play a team three times.”

In the first meetings between the teams, Canyons won by scores of 109-83 and 98-73. So this time, Valley Coach John Taylor decided to try to slow the tempo down--a plan that worked, but only for the first half.

“We tried to stop their breaks, and it worked for a while,” Taylor said. “If we could have put in a few more shots, we would have been right there.”

Valley was able to make only seven of 33 shots in the first half.

But with Valley players in foul trouble, the strategy fizzled in the second half, and Canyons had few problems.

LaCresha Clark added 15 points for Canyons, Wendy Gussner had 13, Nikki Turner scored 11 and Zevette Mitchell had 10. Lisa Nielsen scored 14 for Valley.

Brown said the team was focused all along on making it to San Jose.

“In the second half, we put some heart into it and we thought about San Jose,” she said.