This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Sports

GIRLS BASKETBALL: Santa Cruz Storms Past Branham

Cardinals defensive pressure and fast break offense too much for visitors in CCS second round matchup.

Santa Cruz 72, Branham 31

The Star: Santa Cruz junior Ashley Claussen orchestrated the fast break beautifully all evening long. The speedy point guard scored a game-high 23 points in only three quarters of play.

Junior Pauli Pappas had 11 points and senior forward Sheena Conroe had 10 points in the Central Coast Section Division III Girls Basketball playoff game Thursday night at Santa Cruz High.

Find out what's happening in Santa Cruzwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Turning Point: A 14-2 Santa Cruz (18-8) advantage was trimmed down to only two points at the end of the first quarter. Regrouping after their opponents comeback, the Cardinals exploded in the second quarter. Dominant on both sides of the ball, Santa Cruz outscored Branham 28-4 in the second quarter to take a 42-16 lead into the half. The full court pressure led to several easy buckets as Claussen (11 points) and Pappas (10 points) both had double digit point efforts in the first half.

The Quote: “That’s the type of game play we always want to play,” Santa Cruz junior Ashley Claussen said about her teams up tempo offense and end-to-end full court pressure defense. “After they came back we just needed to regroup. We picked up our play and were able to get things going again. If we get a couple steals, it gets the whole teams going.”  

Find out what's happening in Santa Cruzwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 What's Next? Santa Cruz, the No. 6 seed in the Division III bracket, will play No. 3 seed Valley Christian-San Jose on Saturday at Aptos High. Valley Christian Is one of three West Catholic Athletic League teams seeded in the top four in the D-III tournament.

Bottom Line: It was a textbook effort from a balanced Santa Cruz squad. Ashley Claussen distributed the ball to several players throughout the first half and the third quarter. Kali DeHart, Michaela Whalen, Pauli Pappas and Sheena Conroe make up a solid starting five that will be a tough out as the playoffs move on to the quarterfinal round.

—————————

Santa Cruz Scoring

Conroe-10                        

Pappas-11

Claussen-23

Whalen-7

DeHart-7

Paulin-4

Oropeza-7

Garner-1

Frankel-2

 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?