Eagle Women Set Sights on Starting Playoffs at Home

With two conference wins on their home court last week, the Eagle women are 18-7 and have their sights set on starting the playoffs at home.

They'll take a 5-4 Golden Valley Conference record into Wednesday's final regular season game at Feather River (5-3, 16-7).

After a slow start for both teams, it was all-good for the Eagles in an 81-47 rout of Redwoods Thursday night. Siskiyous went 11 for 26 on three-point shots (42.3 percent) and had 50 rebounds and 8 steals.

Then they evened the score with Shasta in Saturday afternoon's Sophomore Day game, defeating the Knights 69-54 after a ceremony to recognize five sophomores and their families: Jazmyne Wells, Megan Bennett, Teya Amidei, Kayana Woodard, and Halliday Hubbard.

The Eagles lost their conference-opener at Shasta, 64-62, on January 11^th, and they trailed the Knights for much of the first quarter Saturday before finding their shooting touch.

Back-to-back three-pointers by Breanne Hands and Karli Reynolds rocked the gym and gave the Eagles an 18-12 lead with less than a minute to play in the first quarter.

A 23-12 run in the second quarter included three-pointers by Wells, Reynolds, and Woodard and put the Eagles on top at the half 41-26.

Wells, Hands, and Bennett had threes in the third quarter as the lead swelled to 61-40. Shasta then scored the first 9 points of the fourth quarter, but the Eagles got it back together after a timeout. They scored the next 5 points to lead 66-49 with just under 4 minutes to play and took it home from there. For the second game in a row, the Eagles made 11 three-pointers, 3 each by Bennett and Hands, 2 each by Wells and Reynolds, and 1 by Woodard. And they made 16 of their 18 free throw shots with Hubbard going 8 for 8 and Bennett 4 for 4.

Bennett led the team with 17 points, Wells scored 12, Hands 11, Hubbard 10, Woodard 9, and Reynolds 9.

At the start against Redwoods on Thursday, neither team scored for several minutes. But then the Eagles caught fire to take a 17-3 lead that grew to 40-13 at half time.

Wells made 3 threes and scored 17 points, and Hubbard came close to a triple-double with 14 points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists.

Amidei had 13 points and 4 rebounds, and Hands had 11 points, 7 rebounds and 2 steals.

Woodard had 7 points, 6 rebounds and 2 steals, Bennett had 7 points and 4 rebounds, and Reynolds had 6 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists.

Now the Eagles will try to avenge another GVC defeat. When they lost to Feather River 87-74 on January 21^st in Weed, they fell to 1-3 in league. They've won 4 of 5 since then and moved up in the standings. They're now tied with Shasta and a half game out of second place after Shasta defeated Feather River on Monday 56-49. Butte leads the league at 8-1, while Lassen is 2-6 and Redwoods 1-8.

By Steve Gerace