Lady Badgers streak ends with Hanford

Mike Hackworth

(Updated: Thursday, March 11, 2010, 12:50 PM)

Yosemite's girls basketball team stopped Hanford's Taylor Spikes after she scored the game's first six points, but the Lady Badgers couldn't come up with an answer to stop her sister, Madison, last Friday night.

Madison Spikes scored 10 points, including a 3-point buzzer-beater during the decisive first-quarter run, to lead the top-ranked Bullpups to a 69-48 Division II Central Section championship game victory over No. 3 Yosemite last Friday night in Selland Arena.

Hanford forward Bayli McClard scored on a putback basket followed by a forced turnover in the first quarter's last three seconds. Spikes brought the ball up court as far as she could, then shot from 40 feet out to make it 21-9.

Yosemite was able to run through the Bullpups full-court press in the first half, but turned the ball over 17 times in the half, mostly in its end of the court. Double dribbling and poor passing took its toll on the Badger offense.

Yosemite played nearly even with Hanford in the second quarter, but the team's aggressive play had its cost as Sydnee Fipps and Jenay Herring collected three personal fouls each, by the intermission.

"We tried to force some shots in the first half," said Yosemite coach Gary Blate. "We made some mistakes and got into a hole we couldn't get out of."

The Badgers played the last three quarters like the team that won 29 games during the season, but couldn't overcome the first quarter deficit.

"It wasn't easy," said Hanford coach Tom Parrish. "They gave us a game."

Yosemite's success at the free throw line accounted for most of the teams points in the first half, with the Badgers connecting on 12 of 17, or 70%. The team shot 21% from the floor, including 16% from 3-point range -- 2 of 12. The Bullpups connected on 10 of their trys.

With the score 39-22 at the intermission, Yosemite was still in the game, but Hanford made the best of the Badgers' eight turnovers in the third quarter to stretch its lead to 54-37.

"We played the last six weeks winning by double digits and it's hard to get ready for the type of pressure Hanford applies," Blate said. "They are very aggressive, and they've been doing it for a long time and they know how to work with each other."

Hanford opened the fourth quarter with an 8-0 run, but Yosemite answered that with an 8-0 run of its own to stay in the game.

The question of how each team would deal with shooting in an open court was answered by neither team shooting well from beyond the 3-point arc -- something that affected Hanford more than Yosemite in the past. Hanford shot 10 of 32 from the perimeter in the game, better than Yosemite's 5 of 23.

"Shooting is tough in this arena," Parrish said. "I thought Taylor got us going early."

The difference in the game was that the Hanford defense limited Fipps, well below her season scoring average of 24.8 points. The junior forward made just 3 of 14 shots, scoring 13 points with nine rebounds, but she also had eight turnovers.

The Badgers Sienna Gonzales scored 13 points and pulled down 11 rebounds, while Herring was held to one assist and scored 13 points, but committed 13 turnovers.

The Badgers played at home Tuesday night against Granada Hills from Southern California in the first round of the state championship tournament. If victorious, they will play again tonight, although the location was not known at press time. The results of Tuesday's game and where Thursdays game can be reviewed are at sierrastar.com.

Badgers burn Rangers, 89-43

The Badgers won two home games earlier last week that advanced them to the section championship game against Hanford.

They beat Sanger by 33 points and then took out the Redwood Rangers from Visalia in the Central Section D-II quarter-final game, 89-45.

Against Redwood, the team managed only 33% shooting -- 13-29 from 2-point range and 8-35 from 3-point range.

Jenay Herring scored a season high, 25 points. Sydnee Fipps added 22, but the Yosemite scoring duo could not produce from 3-point range connecting on just 3 of 19 from beyond the arc. The Badgers forced 22 turnovers and turned them into 12 points to hold the lead throughout the game.

Yosemite (29-2, 10 NSL) hit timely shots in the first quarter, including two putback rebounds for scores by Fipps and carried a 21-10 lead after the first period.

The Rangers mounted an offensive attack around Analisa Pacheco's three 3-point shots and her six of eight free throws to close the Badgers lead to just eight points, 31-26. With one second remaining in the second quarter, Herring threw-up a shot from midcourt that went through the net as the buzzer sounded, ending the first half.

Redwood shaved another two points off of the scoreboard by the end of three quarters, but Yosemite, using a 9-0 run, bumped its lead up to 10 points at the end of three quarters. The Badgers recovered from their slumber and went on a 9-1 run to start the fourth, finishing off the Rangers by 21 points and making the game look more one sided than it was.

Amanda Rudd finished with nine points and 11 rebounds for Yosemite.