Heading into the second round there were no surprises for the St. Anthony girls’ basketball team as they faced a familiar foe in the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs.
If the Saints wanted to advance they’d have to beat La Salle, a Del Rey League foe, who bested them twice in league action.
Midway through the first quarter it looked like the Saints were on their way to knocking off the Lancers, but La Salle mounted a comeback to take the lead at halftime and they’d onto it on their way to a 48-42 victory Saturday night at Jack Errion Gym.
“I thought the game plan was really, really well executed,” St. Anthony coach Ray Bennett said. “We wanted to double the post and I thought we did a great job with that. We should have shored up some weak side rebounds down the stretch. That caused them to stress the lead a little bit.”
After La Salle jumped out to a 4-0 lead, the Saints got back-to-back threes from Jordyn Ramirez and Jordyn Washington to tie the game at 6-6.
The two teams traded baskets after that and were tied 10-10 after the first quarter. Washington knocked down a couple of free throws to start the second and after the Saints got baskets from Laila Hughes and Washington St. Anthony took a 17-12 lead.
However, Washington would go down in the period with a leg injury and spent some time on the bench with the trainer. That’s when La Salle started to take advantage of their size advantage as they went on a 10-0 run to take a 22-17 lead at halftime.
With a short rotation and undersized lineup, the Saints had trouble keeping the Lancers off the glass as Aislin Tamez Torres and Casey Higgins started to put their fingerprint on the game.
The pair scored all 12 of the Lancers points in the period and Higgins hit two threes as they had all the momentum at the break.
“We really had a 6-man rotation,”Bennett said. “It’s tough to play from behind when you have a 6-man rotation because then you have to extend full court and you want to trap and rotate and all of those kind of things. And that’s tough to do.”
In the third quarter, Cristyn Lachica and Ramirez knocked down threes to try and get the Saints back into it, but La Salle had a response as they outscored the Saints 13-11 to take a 35-28 lead.
St. Anthony outscored the Lancers 14-13 in the final period thanks to Hughes who scored seven of her team-high 18 points, but it wasn’t enough for the Saints to mount the comeback.
Tamez Torres led the Lancers with 21 points while Higgins had 11.
La Salle will be at home for the quarterfinals when they host Villa Park on Wednesday.
