Leading by just two points very late in the first half, East Union came out of the locker room and exploded for an 11-0 run to start the third period and never looked back on the way to a 59-38 Valley Oak League girls basketball win over visiting Sierra at Dalben Center.
“We took care of that basketball in the third quarter,” Lancers coach Jim Agostini said. “We played a little better defense, just the little things you have to do in the game of basketball that we were not doing in the first half.
“I think we turned the ball over at least 10 times in the first half. Possessions are valuable, and it is a very simple concept that you can’t score if you don’t have it and keep giving it to the other team. That’s what we were doing; that and fouling the shooters. For as bad as we played in the first half, that’s as good as we played in the second half.”
East Union’s Shebra Rezaye led all scorers with 18 points to go with eight rebounds. Rezaye scored 12 of her 18 points in the second half, and credits Agostini’s halftime talk with her team’s second-half surge.
“We had a great talk from our coaches at halftime,” Rezaye said. “We used that as motivation to push harder than we did in the first half.”
Ava Barrera posted a double-double for the Lancers (7-1 VOL, 17-6 overall) with 12 points and 12 rebounds.
“I felt pretty good,” Barrera said. “It was flowing for me. After halftime and the talk from our coaches, that made us really push for more, because then we wanted it more.”
East Union’s Haven Stone (three rebounds, three assists, two steals) added eight points, with Julianna Gaspar (three points, seven steals) and Zyondupree Beasley (six points, eight rebounds, two blocks, two steals) contributing to the tough Lancers defense that forced 21 turnovers and made 14 steals.
Part of the reason for the third-quarter Lancers blitz was nine third-period turnovers for the Timberwolves (3-5, 8-11) and no field goals for Sierra in the quarter.
“I just don’t understand us and the press,” Timberwolves coach Rudy Valencia said. “No matter how much you work on stuff, I don’t know if it’s in the moment, but we didn’t execute like we work on all the time when it comes to our press break, and it showed by turning the ball over in the third quarter. We got really sloppy with the ball.
“I give it to them – they kind of came out and hit us with a bit of a surprise with that press. We thought we were ready for it, we practiced for it the day before. We kind of folded under the pressure of the press. It’s kind of a bummer, because our girls played such a good game the first half. They were right in there and doing a lot of good things.”
Mya Everett led Sierra with eight points, while Taylor Zalunardo and Janessa Barnes scored six points and grabbed eight rebounds apiece.
Thursday night at 7:30 both teams hit the road with East Union going to Patterson and the Timberwolves traveling to Mountain House.
Junior varsity
East Union 45, Sierra 23
The Lancers’ Kymoni Beasley led all scorers with 12 points and teammate Lucia Deja added nine points.
Prija Dhaliwal and Noah Ingua scored six points for the Timberwolves.
