Sports
Thundering Herd Races Past Laguna Creek
Elk Grove High School's up-tempo defense had the Cardinals' girls basketball team seeing red.
The Elk Grove High School girls basketball team held nothing back against Laguna Creek, stampeding the Cardinals in a 69-31 blowout on Tuesday night.
Elk Grove turned to a full-court press early in the first quarter against its cross-town rivals, which proved to be a game changer.
"We want to press, we're not a very good shooting team," said Thundering Herd coach Amanda Buck. "That's going to be our best opportunity to win."
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Cardinals coach Ricci Dula tried to slow down the Herd, calling a timeout with Elk Grove leading 8-2 with 5:39 left in the first quarter. Dula called a second timeout two minutes later as Elk Grove extended its lead to 16-3 and never looked back.
Meantime, Buck has fretted this season over the lack of scoring by her team, which moved to 4-12 with the road win. After the game, she said the Herd is not a good half-court team.
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When asked if that’s what prompted her to speed up the pace with the pressing defense, Buck said, “in practice, that’s all we’ve been doing is a lot of up-tempo. We knew they probably weren’t expecting it and it worked. It caught them off guard.”
The press gave Elk Grove a number of layups as well as a steady parade to the free-throw line. Melayne Alexander, Carlee Gray and Jordan Brenner shared high-scoring honors for Elk Grove, each tallying 12 points against the Herd’s Delta Valley Conference rival.
Elk Grove’s big players repeatedly ended up with layups or rebounds off fast-break attempts.
Elk Grove also won the battle from the line. The Thundering Herd attempted 32 free throws, often drawing fouls on fast breaks brought about by its ball-hawking defense. Although it hit only 14 free throws, the Herd tallied more than Laguna Creek attempted at 13.
The Cardinals dropped to 6-10 on the season. Ashleigh Stanford came off the bench to lead Laguna Creek in scoring with seven points. Jordan Belcher chipped in five points, as did another non-starter, Aleena Nicholson.
Bench scoring was one part of the game the Cardinals held their own, only being outscored 19-17 by Elk Grove’s reserves, despite nine points from the Herd's Tierra Leisure.
It was a good night all around for Elk Grove, as the Thundering Herd also won the junior varsity game 43-21.