A stout defensive effort in the second half lifted the Dos Pueblos High School girls basketball team to a hard-fought, 45-38, victory over Santa Clara Wednesday night at Sovine Gym as the team hosts the Central Coast Classic.
With the win, Dos Pueblos moves to 4-1 overall on the season, with its next matchup coming on Friday against Rio Mesa at 5:30 p.m. Santa Clara fell to 3-6 overall on the season.
“We weren’t making any shots so we had to really buckle down defensively and that’s what we did,” Dos Pueblos coach Phil Sherman told Noozhawk.
Senior Lily Mires filled up the stat sheet for the Chargers, scoring a game-high 21 points on 9-of-17 shooting from the floor, including one make from deep. She added four rebounds, two blocks and one steal as well.
“I thought we passed the ball pretty well through our offense compared to our last game,” Mires said. “We didn’t shoot after just one pass. That’s something we have been working on and getting the ball moving to open up a lot more opportunities to score.”
But the rest of the team struggled from the floor, shooting just 9 of 49 from the field.
“Leila (Chisholm) and Lily have been our best players, but I thought this team was going to be very deep, and so far it hasn’t been that way,” Sherman said. “But we just have to keep going. We talked about athletic confidence, having a little swagger to help with performance because it’s not so much that we have a defensive problem with this team, it’s long droughts of not scoring.”
Sophomore Justine Katz chipped in nine points for DP to go along with a game-high nine rebounds. She crashed the glass hard in the second half.
The senior Chisholm added eight points in the win, along with a game-high three assists.
DP led for the majority of the first quarter. After falling behind 5-2 early, the Chargers went on a quick 8-0 run to take a 10-5 lead, kick started by a 3-point shot from Mires to tie the game up and then a driving layup to give her team a 7-5 lead.
Santa Clara responded in the form of Ab Ramirez. The junior scored six of her team-high 20 points, a lot of it in the paint, in the first frame to keep her team within three at the end of the quarter.
In the second quarter, DP couldn’t get a shot to fall until the 4:05 mark. The score helped the team regain a 16-15 lead.
From there, the two teams traded baskets until a last-second Santa Clara shot from senior guard Jasmine Lin gave the Saints a 21-20 lead into the break.
After Ramirez added another five points in the second quarter, Mires said she took it upon herself to guard the junior and try to neutralize her offense.
“I saw that she was scoring a lot in the paint, so I told my team at halftime that I would guard her. I feel that helped our defensive energy,” Mires said.
The Chargers opened the second half with a 10-0 run over a 3:30 span to take a 30-21 lead, capped off by a three from Lia Papador.
Santa Clara did not score its first basket until there was just 1:59 left in the frame, but closed the final two minutes with a 6-2 run to cut the lead back to five.
In the fourth quarter, a Santa Clara cut the lead to one with 6:09 left, but Katz scored on back-to-back possessions to extend the Chargers lead back to five.
After both teams traded baskets, Chisholm knocked a three from the right corner to give DP a 41-33 with 2:26 left to go. From there, the Chargers were able to knock down some key free throws down the stretch and secure the 45-38 win.
Sherman applauded his team for “gutting” out the win despite a tough night shooting from the floor.
“It says a lot about them when you can gut out a game when you have nothing going for you offensively,” Sherman said. “It was good that they dug in and found a way.
“I think with this group this is something that could happen at times, so you have to dig in when the shots aren’t falling and still find a way to win.”