February 3, 2005

Fight for first place sees Leland girls’ hoops
drop 43-30 loss to Leigh

Chargers slip to second place with loss;
Leigh’s Laura McClellan drops in 14 points

By Diego Abeloos
Sports Editor

A long-awaited match-up featuring last season’s Mt. Hamilton Division co-champions didn’t go as planned for the Leland Chargers, who dropped a 43-30 loss to Leigh on the road on Jan. 18.

Leland’s Mika Yanai (right) and JoVanna Cobos (left) battle Leigh point guard Natalie Nurnberg (center) in the low post during a 43-30 loss to the Longhorns on Jan. 18.

Both teams shared a first-place tie coming into the game as well, with identical 3-0 records in league play.

“Both are good teams, coached well and well disciplined,” said Leigh Head Coach Gary Fernandes of the match-up. “Tonight it was just our night. It could’ve gone either way, but tonight was our night.”

For Leland, the game hinged on effective outside shooting, said Chargers Head Coach Wade Nakamura, considering Leigh’s dominant inside presence in seniors Laura McClellan, who led all scorers with 14 points, and Stephanie Ruiz, who despite early foul trouble, finished the game with nine points. Both seniors are college-bound basketball players, with McClellan signing a letter of intent to play for the University of Washington, while Ruiz will attend Bethany College in Scotts Valley to play hoops as well.

Leland didn’t get the outside shooting it was looking for, shooting only 16 percent from the floor throughout the game. Still, Nakamura said he was pleased to see his squad stay close until the end.

“It’s not really frustrating,” Nakamura said of his team’s effort. “I mean, we were in the game for the whole game …We just need to be able to hit a few shots and tonight, we didn’t do that. I’m not frustrated at all. We have another opportunity to play them (Feb. 10). We can’t really focus on Leigh though, we need to focus on everyone else.”

Things weren’t very close in the early going for the Chargers, who found themselves down quickly by a score of 14-4 at the end of the first quarter. Leland didn’t score until Ana Farrington dropped in one of two free-throw shots with 3:19 left in the first.

Farrington, who finished the game with eight points, was quickly followed by Kristen Yoshioka, who nailed a 3-pointer at 2:56, the only points that night for Leland’s most consistent scoring threat.

After starting out on an 8-0 run to start the game, Leigh finished off the first on a modest 6-0 run. The jumpstart was a welcomed sight to Fernandes, who said early leads are crucial to his team’s success.

“Our game depends on us getting out quick,” Fernandes said of getting the early lead. “It helps our transition game, it helps our defensive side of the game, so getting out as quickly as possible is always better for us.”

The setback for the Chargers continued in the second quarter, which saw the Longhorns take a 24-13 lead at halftime. McClellan was a key player in Leigh’s promising start, dropping in 12 of her game-total 14 points in the first half, including eight points in the first quarter alone.

“It was probably her best overall game of the year so far,” Fernandes said of McClellan. “Both defensively and offensively, and team-wise in moving the ball around, it was definitely her best all-around game.”

After a McClellan layup gave Leigh a 26-13 lead to start the third quarter, the Chargers started to slowly chip away at the Longhorn lead, putting together a 10-4 run in a three-minute span.

The run started with a pair of free throws from point guard Mika Yanai, before Meggie Yoshioka put together a solid offensive effort, sinking a pair of 3-pointers and a layup, cutting the Longhorn lead to 30-23. Meggie Yoshioka led the Chargers with 10 points overall.

“That’s one of our problems that we have to work out as a team right now,” McClellan said of allowing Leland to get back into the game with the 10-4 run. “We come out real strong, and once we get a nice lead, we start to relax. When they come back and we try to get back into it, we’re almost cold. We just have work on playing hard the whole game, no matter what the lead.”

However, the seven-point deficit was as close as the Chargers would get in the loss. An 8-2 run by the Longhorns that stretched into the early portion of the fourth quarter gave the home team a sizable 13-point lead at 38-25.
Meanwhile, the Chargers managed to score just twice in the fourth quarter, getting a layup from Farrington with 5:05 left before Yanai hit a 3-pointer at 3:35.

The Longhorns then finished up the game by reaching the free-throw line four times in the final three minutes of the game, hitting five of eight shots from the line to secure the win.

Despite the loss, Nakamura said he felt confident in his team’s ability to match up against Leigh in the future.

“I think that, as bad as we shot, as bad as we played, the game was within reach,” Nakamura said. “It’s definitely not a shot to our confidence. Our girls are definitely confident. I think they know that we can beat them.”