Support our high school sports coverage by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribe now.
CANYON COUNTRY — Canyon girls basketball coach Jessica Haayer says you can’t think a game is over until there’s less than three minutes left.
“And then it becomes, you’ve got to cut a lead down,” she said.
A disciplined La Salle team built up a substantial early lead, leaving Canyon to dig deep in the final quarter. The Cowboys had their highest-scoring quarter in that final frame, but the Lancers stayed the course to win 53-36 in the CIF Southern Section Division 2AA quarterfinals.
La Salle moves on to the semifinals where they’ll play Redondo Union on Saturday.
“When you get a team like that, that is so disciplined to work you until they get the layup,” Haayer said, “if you’re not disciplined right back and you don’t communicate and you don’t do all those things, you’re going to give up layups. You’re going to give up buckets.”
Girls basketball roundup: Sierra Canyon, Juju Watkins dominates in Open Division playoff win
Canyon (20-8) only scored three points in the first quarter on a layup and a free throw by Jade Sims, who went on to finish the game with 14 points.
The Cowboys started to disrupt La Salle (28-3) in the second quarter while slowly making some shots of their own. Koko Booker hit a jumper on one end, then blocked a shot on the other. Two minutes later, Josie Regez sank back-to-back 3-pointers to bring the score to 20-10 with 1:40 left in the first half.
Regez paced the Cowboys with 15 points in the game. The junior didn’t begin playing basketball until she got to high school, but Haayer expects her to be a leader on next year’s team.
“She started her freshman year, but that was the COVID year,” Haayer said. “So she’s still out like, 20 games, but you’d never guess. She’s good. She has finesse.”
La Salle built on its 24-11 advantage in the third quarter, then Canyon scored 17 points in the final…
Read the full article here
