Stockdale rolls in SWYL battle
| Thursday, Feb 04 2010 10:07 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Feb 04 2010 10:07 PM
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Five foot Stockdale point guard Aylssa Shannon (10) reaches as high as she can to pressure 5'9' Frontier center Gabi Morales.
Stockdale's Jazmine Miller looks down court to pass with Frontier's Vera Nard, right, in pursuit.
The only thing missing was the music from the movie "Jaws" playing in the background. Like hungry sharks, the Stockdale girls basketball team circled Frontier on Thursday night with its full court press and then quickly finished off the Titans.
The battle between the Southwest Yosemite League's two top teams was over before it barely began as the host Mustangs scored the first 19 points en route to an easy 89-40 victory.
"We told our kids that we want to be playing our best basketball towards the end of the season and I think they kind of took that to heart," Stockdale co-coach Glenn Hager said. "Our practices are a lot more competitive and we're starting to play a lot better."
Stockdale (21-3, 8-0 SWYL) forced 39 turnovers including 13 while it ran up a 29-9 lead during the first quarter.
Marissa Bruce led the Mustangs with 20 points on 10-of-12 shooting. Jalei Kinder added 14 points and Alyssa Shannon chipped in eight points, 11 assists and five steals for Stockdale, which won its eighth straight and now finds itself in complete command of the SWYL title race.
"We just came out ready to play," Bruce said. "We knew that they were going to be tough but we put it on them. We just played really good defense and all made our shots."
The Mustangs have outscored their league opponents by a margin of 42 points per game this season. The closest of the eight was a 28-point win over Ridgeview last month.
"We're really not worried about our opponents," Stockdale co-coach Charles Stewart said. "It's more or less doing what we need to do defensively and offensively to play well. Tonight we put both things together and it resulted in a nice win."
Gabi Morales had a game-high 23 points to go along with 13 rebounds and four blocked shots for Frontier (18-5, 7-2 SWYL) which lost for the first time since it last played Stockdale six games ago.
Bruce and Haleigh Alvidrez combined for 19 first quarter-points. Bruce did most of her damage inside and on the end of fast break layups off of turnovers while Alvidrez drained three 3-pointers. She finished with 12 points, all of them coming from beyond the arc.
After leading by 31 points at halftime, the Mustangs extended their advantage to 47 going into the final quarter.
"Stockdale is a great team," Frontier coach Taylor Seay said. "They have a lot of talent. We just have to take care of the ball when we play them and come in strong."
