In a strong defensive showing, Poly’s girls’ basketball team proved it has the mark of a great team—the ability to win while not playing your best.  Committing 20+ fouls, committing 17 turnovers, and shooting 2-11 from three-point range certainly doesn’t qualify as their best; but thanks to a strong defensive effort, and a great night from junior Tajanae Winston, Poly advances to the CIF championship game anyway, with a 59-47 win over the Etiwanda Eagles.  The game will be Saturday, March 6th at the Pyramid, against the bracket’s no. 2 seed, the Corona Santiago Sharks.

Poly coach Carl Buggs complimented the Eagles’ prowess in drawing fouls—by pounding and driving the ball inside, they put Poly in the bonus with plenty of time left in the second quarter, and attempted 18 fouls shots in the first half.  That, along with Poly’s turnover woes early, kept the Eagles in the game, and in fact gave them a 21-20 lead at halftime.

Then, in the third, the Poly defense showed up.  The Rabbits forced 10 turnovers and capitalized with 12 points in the third quarter—through three minutes, the Eagles had attempted just two shots, with Poly stealing the ball away the rest of the time.  Winston had four steals herself in the third quarter, helping her team draw out a 40-24 lead on a 19-4 run to start the second half.  “She stepped up big time,” said Buggs of his junior guard, starting in place of the injured Ashley Wilson.  After that stretch, some hot shooting by Etiwanda kept them in it, eventually drawing as close as 52-46, before a Sheila Boykin and-one put the game away.

Winston said it was easy to find motivation at halftime.  “We were down, because they were giving it all they had,” she said.  “They were showing that they wanted it more than we did, and we had to step it up.”

“I thought that we didn’t do a bad job defensively,” said Buggs (Poly ended up forcing 27 turnovers, with 24 of their points coming on those opportunities).  “But we were lazy in the post [on offense].  We just had no patience, we were shooting way too early and settling for outside shots.”  The ability to get the ball inside—to Boykin, TaNitra Byrd, Destiny King, and Thaddesia Southall—will be imperative in the next game, against an undersized Santiago team.

Boykin finished with 11 points and five boards to lead the scoring, while Winston finished with 10 points, a team-leading eight rebounds, six steals, and a block.  Ariya Crook-Williams also had 10 points.  The leaders for Etiwanda were Jada Blackwell, who had 17 points, and Angelique Bailey who had 17 on 6-6 shooting from the field, and a 5-5 performance from the charity stripe.

The exact time of the championship game next Saturday will be released Monday at noon, and we’ll post it as soon as it’s available, as well as of course giving you scouting reports on Santiago and features on Poly players this week!