Coyote Athletics : Women's Basketball : Headlines

Cerro Coso makes run at L.A. Harbor despite being short handed

By Cheeto Barrera, Sports Editor, The Daily Independent

“We're missing four players and we had two playing sick...”

With only six players available for Saturday's game, the Cerro Coso women's basketball team put up a fight against L.A. Harbor College but fell 58-52.

“We're missing four players and we had two playing sick,” said coach Tom Heck. “We've been off since Dec. 18 and our conditioning showed - we were really tired. You compound that with shooting 18 or 19 percent from the floor and it is really tough to win a basketball game.”

Cerro Coso had been missing players for practice the entire week, between illnesses and others getting stuck in New Mexico because of snow.

The team was also missing two players Saturday who were at tribal ceremonies - that added on to injuries that has claimed one player and might cost the team another.

I have always made the comment that if we stay healthy, we can stay competitive and we are anything but healthy,” Heck said.

The Coyotes were hit with a one-two punch from forward Sky Blue and guard Melissa Milton. Between them, the two women accounted for 41 of the Skyhawks' 58 points.

“It wasn't nothing special, because 3 and 15 (Blue and Milton) were doing all the damage - it was them doing all the scoring, all the dribbling,” said sophomore forward Angel Lash. “Even with out them, they passed to open players and open players sometimes miss, but mostly got their rebounds and kept putting it back up until they got something.”

Lash led the Coyotes with 16 points.

Midway through the first half, Heck called a timeout and told the girls to focus primarily on Blue and Milton.

It initially worked with the Coyotes going on a 12-4 scoring run to take a 22-21 lead.

L.A. Harbor went on a mini run of its own to knot the game up at 29-29 at halftime.

In the second half, Cerro Coso kept up the pressure it had to close out the first, scoring two quick baskets to take a 33-29 lead.

The two teams went back and forth in the early minutes of the half before L.A. Harbor began to work around the Coyote defense, allowing its two guns to go to work.

“In the second half we didn't react fast enough,” Lash said. “We waited for our coach to tell us move, to tell us to pass. We did not come to the ball. We did not stop penetration and we did not penetrate ourselves.”

Cerro Coso went to work against Blue and Milton like in the first, but it left other players wide open for an easy pass down court and a bucket.

“They used the rest of their team to get 15 open shot or she just dished off to someone else who was open and they put in the basket, that's it.” Lash said. “We took good shots and missed we took open shots we couldn't finish. We didn't execute on our plays we didn't run our plays. We couldn't break their full court press, I guess. They pressed us and we didn't break it.”

Heck said it wasn't so much that L.A. Harbor found an answer for the defense, it was that the offense wasn't producing like he would have liked.

“The answer mainly was the fact that we only scored 52 points and we shot 19 percent and we were 1-15 from the three,” Heck said.

Heck said given the circumstances he faced, he was still encouraged by the effort of his players.

“I give credit and praise to Brittany Graybill and Dar'Shelle Lynch,” Heck said. “Both of them were sick ... and they gave me a good effort.”

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

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