Tough time for Gaucho girls against NBL best

Casa Grande dropped a pair of contests to the top two teams in the North Bay League as the Lady Gauchos fell to both Santa Rosa and Cardinal Newman on their home floor in a four-day period. The contests had a much different flavor.

On Tuesday, Casa patched together a frantic three quarters of offense only to lose the lead and the ballgame as Santa Rosa roared back in the final stanza to outscore the Lady Gauchos 23-15 on the way to a 64-58 victory.

Overall, Casa converted on an amazing 12 shots from outside the arc to hold the lead most of the way, but the all-around play of Panther junior Emily Codding eventually made the difference in the outcome.

Codding had 15 points, but her rebounding (11) and floor game spearheaded the Lady Panther offense. Her four assists in the fourth period opened the way for teammate Mireya Lopez to convert 11 points in the paint, and it made the difference. Lopez positioned herself perfectly in the low block, and knocked in lay-ups from difficult angles in the fast-paced finish. Lopez led all players with 20 points.

Casa Grande (4-4) played well in the early stages of the frantic crowd-pleaser. Joy Jovick took command with a couple of shots from distance and some dribble drives that got her past Codding. Jovick finished with a team-high 15 points and nine rebounds, but she was saddled with foul trouble after picking up her third early in the third quarter.

It was a solid team effort for the Gauchos, who got 11 points from sophomore long-range specialist Hannah Sullivan and 10 more in the late going by a suddenly offensive-minded point guard Claire Killian.

Another contributor for Casa was center Mia Cain, who brought much-needed energy into the contest off the bench when she could get past a couple of traveling calls. Cain tossed in eight points, while shooting guard Caty Millar had 12, all on shots from outside the arc. The biggest lead for the Gauchos was at 26-16 in the second quarter. The offensive flow began to fall apart in the final minutes in a short stretch that Dan Sack told his girls was “gut check time.”

The win for Santa Rosa (6-2) avenged a league-opening upset at the hands of the Lady Gauchos on the Panther floor.

In a reversal of form, Sara Howard tossed 10 points in the second half to add to the Panther rally. It was Howard who committed a needless fourth-quarter technical foul in the one point loss to the Gauchos earlier.

Newman romps

It didn’t take long for North Bay League-leading Cardinal Newman to establish its dominance against the Casa Grande girls in a rare Saturday afternoon game on the Gaucho campus. The Cardinals combined workmanlike passing with accurate shooting to run away to an impressive 39-11 lead at halftime before the Lady Gauchos had time to regroup.

A powerful Cardinal team took the floor, and didn’t miss a beat in heating up on the offensive end while impressively choking all the driving lanes on the other end of the floor, and the game was decided early. At the end, it was a overwhelming 72-32 victory for the Cardinals.

Sophomore guard Mai Flores drained almost everything she tossed toward the basket, and finished with 13 points in the first half before coach Monica Mertle relaxed the full-court pressing defense midway through the third period. Flores went on to lead all scorers with 17 points, and had seven assists.

Anything that the hot-shooting Cardinals missed was cleaned up by 6-5 center Lauren Walker and Arizona State-bound Haley Vice-Neat.

Casa Grande tried to penetrate the player-to-player defense of the Cardinals with a weaving motion at the top of the key, but Newman denied most drives and pressured the hosts to shoot off-balance shots with little chance to score. In the first half, only Jovick defied intimidation, and drove to the basket for six of the Gauchos’ 11 points before the break.

Normally high-scoring Cassidy McKinney was completely frustrated, and most of her shots had to be altered to get them over the reach of the bigger Newman defenders.

After a few minutes following halftime, the Cardinals fell back and substituted liberally, but the margin grew to 52-20. Tai Webb, another sophomore, continued to pass the ball effectively, using both hands while tossing in occasional baskets from the baseline.

Hannah Sullivan came off the bench to rail four shots from outside the arc to provide the Lady Gaucho offense. She finished with a team-high 12 points, while the constantly moving Jovick wound up with 10.

Seldom-used sophomore Aliyah Consani-Baker came into the game in the final minutes to score points from every angle, and she wound up with 16 points. All of her point production came in a short burst during the final period.

Loss to Vikings

Also last week, Montgomery’s defense put the clamps on Casa Grande, allowing the Gauchos into double digits in only one of three quarters on its way to a 49-30 North Bay League win.

Casa scored just 15 points in each half against the board-dominating Vikings.

Jovick scored nine points to lead Casa Grande,

Shaylka Newman had 15 points and pulled down 22 rebounds for Montgomery.

MLK win

McKinney poured in 21 points to lead Casa Grande to a 57-50 non-league win over Redwood from the Marin County Athletic League as part of the Martin Luther King Jr. Classic event which pits North Bay teams against Marin County schools.

Casa rallied for 18 points in the final quarter to clinch the win after leading 39-38 after three periods.

Sullivan scored 12 points and Jovick added 10 for the Gauchos.