Troy’s Game Goes South as North Rolls

There were no excuses afterward.

Troy, the No. 2 seed in the Southern Section Division I-A girls’ basketball playoffs, had just been thrashed by the No. 1 seed.

There were no questions about officials.

There were no injuries.

There was no doubt.

Riverside North, playing nearly perfect in the first quarter, defeated Troy, 65-42, at the Long Beach State Pyramid, claiming the program’s first section title.

It was a disappointment for Troy. The Warriors (26-4) expected to shoot better than the 25% they did in the first half.

They expected to disrupt North’s offense with their oppressive full-court press.

They expected so much more.

Instead, they got Moore--North’s 6-foot-2 junior Keisha Moore.

She scored 28 points, 17 in the first half, and put Troy in a hole it couldn’t escape.

“I was impressed with the way they handled themselves,” said Troy’s Veronica Johns-Richardson, who made just two of 11 field-goal attempts.

“They saw [their offense] was working inside and they kept getting it to Keisha.”

But it wasn’t just Moore inside. The Huskies (27-3) made three three-point baskets in the first three minutes as part of a 13-0 run.

“I don’t think that team is 20 points better than us, but the beginning of the game showed it all,” Johns-Richardson said. “Those points were never made up.”

Troy appeared to have the jitters from the outset, committing three unforced turnovers in its first three possessions. The result? Eight points for North by virtue of three-point baskets by Shandrika Lee and Angella Zanini, and a 16-footer by Moore.

It took more than two minutes before Troy attempted its first field goal, and by the time it managed its second, the Huskies had made five of six shots, three of them three-pointers, and held a 13-0 lead.

“We’ve met every challenge this year,” Troy Coach Kevin Kiernan said. “Tonight, we didn’t meet the challenge of keeping our poise and composure.”

Troy committed nine turnovers in the first quarter and managed only four shot attempts, making two. North led, 22-10, after one quarter.

It didn’t get much better in the second quarter for Troy. The Warriors got off more shots, only to discover they were having a woeful night from the field. They made three of 16, and Johns-Richardson--held without a shot attempt in the first quarter--was 0 for 6.

Only Alicia Komaki’s 30-foot three-point basket at the buzzer prevented the damage from being worse. The Warriors trailed at halftime, 40-21.

Komaki, a sophomore, led the Warriors with 14 points, including three of six from the three-point arc.

Stefanie Schilling, a junior, scored eight.

Johns-Richardson, a junior, scored five. Katie Hardeman, Troy’s only senior starter, scored only seven after averaging 15.8 in the Warriors’ four previous playoff games. The defensive stopper, she and Johns-Richardson held Pepperdine-bound Shandrika Lee to only seven points. It was a small victory.

“Somebody asked me about the game,” Johns-Richardson said, “and I told them that I thought it would be decided in the first couple of minutes.”

She was right.

“They shot the lights out, they got anything they wanted to get,” Kiernan said. “You don’t want to get in the hole, 13-0, when your press isn’t working. We could never get it down to single digits.”

Troy got no closer than 12 in the second half.

“We had no answer for anything,” Kiernan said, “and North did a great job of handling the ball.”