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Lady Coyotes struggle offensively in loss to Taft

By Cheeto Barrera, Sports Editor, The Daily Independent

"We have to play a near perfect game for us to win a game."

Despite holding Taft to 47 points on Saturday, Cerro Coso couldn’t do any better.

The Lady Coyotes put up just 14-first half points en route to a 47-31 home loss.

Cerro Coso struggled early, forcing the team to adjust its came plan in the second half. The Coyotes started running a half-court trap that forced Taft to commit several turnovers, but the anemic offense still persisted.

“I tried to go up tempo on them and scramble in the second half, but it doesn’t do any good if you can’t score a basket,” said head coach Tom Heck.

And as things started to tip in Cerro Coso’s favor, the shooting got worse.

With just six players on its squad, Taft had two foul out leaving four to finish the final five minutes of the game.
In that stretch, the Coyotes scored five points on two field goals.

Cerro Coso didn’t have a player in double digits scoring, led by Shardae Moore who had seven.

“If we would have scored at all, we didn’t defend that badly in the second half, I had to come out and scraped and scratched to make something happen and they scored some,” Heck said.

Cerro Coso’s bright spot did come from the charity stripe. The Coyotes shot 10-18, including 6-10 in the second half.

Overall, however, the Coyotes just couldn’t string enough together to get back into the game after falling 22-9 with seven minutes to play in the first half.

Neither side made a basket to start the second half, until Taft’s Jessica Valencia finally broke the stalemate hitting a shot after nearly four minutes had gone by.

From there, both teams traded baskets through the first 10 minutes until the Coyotes began to scramble and tended to rush things leading to several key turnovers. The turnovers led to a couple of Cougar fast-breaks which allowed them to put the game away.

“We just simply can’t score enough and we turn the ball over too many times,” Heck said. “We give too many points away and we can’t afford to give any away. We have to play a near perfect game for us to win a game.”

L.A. Pierce Tournament
Cerro Coso won the consolation final in the L.A. Pierce Tournament on Nov. 30 defeating Oxnard 61-43.

Bionca Jordan earned All-Tournament honors.

The Coyotes started things off with an 89-53 loss to Citrus (8-2) and followed that up with a 66-58 win over Cuyamaca leading to the consolation victory.

Heck said the loss to Citrus was an opportunity for his girls to gain some experience facing a tough pressing team.

“Citrus lead by 27 at the half, and I asked their coach to keep the press on the entire game so we could learn,” Heck said. “I think this helped us beat Oxnard. The Oxnard game was a very nice upset win for us.”

Kara Graymountain, Sieddah Blair and Jordan led the team in scoring with Blair, Jordan and Shardae Moore leading in rebounding for the team.

Heck also credited Eunie Walker from Whiteriver, Ariz., for her effort on the boards and defensively.

College of the Desert 58, Cerro Coso 43
Dec. 3, Coso opened conference play with a 58—43 loss to college of the desert at COD.

Coso was hampered by COD’s full court press and struggled to attack their zone and found themselves down 17 at the half.

Heck said the team played better in the second half as COD went man to man.

Coso shot 14 percent from the field in the first half, but improved in the second half.

The team committed 19 turnovers in the first half, but rallied in the second, turning the ball over nine times. Coso went 0-15 from beyond the arc, and just 6-20 from the free throw line.

“We defended fairly well, but just struggle to score,” Heck said. “We struggled against the zone and couldn’t finish some easy shots in the second half. Our effort is good — we just need to make a few shots.”

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

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