Mustangs not thrilled with latest victory
| Wednesday, Jan 07 2009 02:19 AM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 27 2009 01:42 PM
A quick check of the scoreboard confirmed it: Stockdale's girls basketball team had indeed won 64-47 at Bakersfield High on Tuesday.
So why the long faces emerging from the Mustangs' downstairs locker room after a long postgame meeting?
"Right now, the glass is half empty," Stockdale co-coach Glenn Hager said. "I thought we played very poorly; I thought BHS played very well and was well-prepared, and we didn't play good team basketball."
Stockdale (10-4) extended its winning streak against Kern County teams to 32 games, but this was the closest local win the Mustangs have earned since beating North by 16 on Feb. 22, 2007.
In this one, they forced 38 turnovers and were led in scoring by Jalei Kinder and Melissa Sweat, each with 17 points. Sweat shook off a slow shooting night in the first half to score 14 after the break.
"In the first half, we shot poorly," said Charles Stewart, the Mustangs' other coach. "Against BHS, you can't shoot poorly, or it's going to be a barn-burner. And we missed too many shots we had no business missing."
Alexi Smith, who transferred from Bakersfield to Stockdale last summer, showed off the Mustangs' inside game with 14 points and 14 rebounds.
"It was fun," Smith said, "but we wanted to come out and smash them. It didn't happen. But we're going to play better."
The Mustangs were out of control at times in the first half -- they raced to a 12-3 lead but their turnovers let Bakersfield claw back into the game. The Mustangs finished with 22 turnovers.
"Very sloppy," Hager said. "... Because of the up-tempo style we play, we know we're going to have some turnovers, but we try to keep it under 20."
The Drillers led a couple of times -- the last on Ricquel Wofford's layup about 2:45 before halftime that made it 26-24.
"We had them," first-year Bakersfield coach Jimmy Henry said. "A few mental mistakes."
Then Stockdale rattled off eight straight points to end the half and 23 of the first 31 in the second half.
"I was telling my girls in the locker room, the first five or six minutes of the third quarter is what wins the game," Henry said. "If we had came out and stayed within two points down, it's anybody's game."
But whatever moral victory BHS gleaned from its effort didn't concern Stockdale.
"We're trying to gauge our game on what we need to do as a team, not what some other team is doing," Stewart said. "And for our own expectations, we didn't play to our level."
