Moorpark Tames Frontier, 46-43

The stakes were high when the Moorpark High girls’ basketball team visited Nordhoff on Friday night with the Frontier League title on the line.

The play, however, was anything but top shelf.

Moorpark won, 46-43, to secure its second outright title in three years. But neither team won any awards for style in a contest that featured 45 turnovers and missed shots in bunches.

“Our heads weren’t in it individually, but as a team we were terrific,” said Moorpark standout forward Damaris Hinojosa, who was limited to six points but had 11 rebounds, nine assists and four steals.

“We were rushing the ball around but once we settled down we got a little better.

“Our rebounds and steals and our whole defense kept us in it.”

Moorpark (21-3, 10-0 in league play), which won the teams’ first meeting in overtime, outrebounded the Rangers (20-6, 8-2), 41-30.

After breaking a 19-19 halftime score, the Musketeers led until Nell Becker made a three-point shot with 54 seconds to play to pull Nordhoff into a 43-43 tie.

From there, Moorpark made three of five free throws and benefited when the Rangers committed turnovers on their last two possessions.

Nordhoff Coach Ted Cotti said his team was at a disadvantage because of the absence of starting guard Melody Shedlosky, who injured a knee in practice on Thursday.

Cotti said the Rangers had worked for three weeks on using Shedlosky and Becker as dual point guards in order to better get the ball to Christen Roper and standout forward Erin Barker. With only Becker in a distributing role, Nordhoff struggled.

“[Moorpark] Coach [Brent] Milburn realized we were just dumping it in to Roper and instead of focusing on her he focused on pressuring Nell,” Cotti said. “It’s hard to feed the post under so much pressure.”

Hinojosa, who entered the week leading the region with a 24.3 scoring average, also was closely guarded. But she made the Rangers pay with her passing acumen.

“It was frustrating getting triple-teamed every time I went inside, and I wasn’t shooting well from outside,” Hinojosa said.

Cotti once again was reminded that Hinojosa can beat a team in more ways than one.

“We had the right people on their team shooting, but after the passes [Hinojosa] made, they were sometimes shooting from two feet,” he said.

Barker was the game’s high scorer with 19 points, and made 11 of 12 free throws.

Becker and Moorpark’s Sonia Ceja and Nicole Nestico each had 12 points.

Roper is often plagued by foul trouble but she had only three Friday and grabbed 11 rebounds. She did commit six turnovers.

Moorpark hit 16 of 61 shots from the field (26%), and Nordhoff hit 12 of 41 (29%). Moorpark made one of 13 three-point attempts and the Rangers were three of 15.