Eagle women looking to improve playoff spot on Sophomore Night

After a big win at Butte last week, the Eagle women's basketball team goes into Tuesday night's home finale against Shasta with a second place finish up for grabs.

The Eagles and Knights are both 5-2 in the Golden Valley Conference, while Butte (7-1) clinched the championship by beating Shasta Saturday.

Butte had won 9 games in a row before falling to the Eagles, 74-63, last Wednesday night in Oroville. The Roadrunners hadn't lost since a previous loss to the Eagles, in a non-conference game at the San Jose City Tournament in late December.

In between those two Siskiyous victories, Butte won 73-54 when they played a first-round GVC game Jan. 22nd in Weed.

"It was huge for us," Eagles' head coach Noelle Collier said of last week's win, which improved her team's postseason positioning and further tightened the top half of the GVC standings. Butte is 16-9 overall, Siskiyous 16-8, Shasta 15-10.

College of the Siskiyous will celebrate its sophomores before Tuesday night's games. The men's game starts at 5 p.m., the women's game at 7. The four sophomores on the women's team, point guard Tatum Allen of Orland, guard Samantha Freitas of Yreka, guard/forward Grace Hubbard of Etna, and forward Ella Sannar of Gridley, are all starters along with freshman guard Alexes Collier of Yreka.

Collier leads the conference with 75 three-point baskets and is second in conference with 18.6 points per game and 77 free throws made. Freitas leads the conference with 4 assists per game, while Collier is 7th with 3.2, and Allen 10th with 2.8. Hubbard leads the conference in field goal percentage (51.1) and offensive rebounds per game (4.4) and is 4th with 9.8 total rebounds per game. Sannar is 6th in conference with a 42.9 field goal shooting percentage and 7th in rebounds per game (7.3). Allen leads the conference with a 75.6 free throw shooting percentage and is second on the team with 12.3 points per game. Hubbard is averaging 9.3 points per game, Freitas 8, freshman Samantha Gish 6.6, and Sannar 6.5.

In the win at Butte, Collier made 3 threes and scored 16 points with 6 rebounds and 5 assists. Allen had 14 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists. Freitas made 2 threes and scored 12 points with 4 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals. Sannar had 4 offensive rebounds, 10 total rebounds, 9 points, and 2 steals. Hubbard made 3 of her 6 shots for 6 points with 3 rebounds. Gish scored 14 points with 7 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocked shots; and freshman Kaelyn Lange had 7 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 points.

Coach Collier said Butte shot well and won the mental game with aggressive play the night they beat the Eagles in Weed. Butte made 48 percent of its field goal attempts (25 of 58) in that game and 44 percent of its three-pointers (14 of 32) while forcing 18 turnovers and blocking 4 shots.

And it wasn't just Butte's leading scorers, Shade Satica and Giselle Rodriguez, who got hot that night. Sheri Enneking, who averages 3 points per game, hit 3 threes and finished with 13 points.

So, the Eagles went to Oroville Wednesday night focused on defense. "We wanted to get them off to a poor shooting start," Collier said. "We wanted to shut down their best scorers and force them to go to their role players -- and they didn't shoot as well this time."

Satica, the leading scorer in the GVC, had 21 points, but Rodriguez had only 8, well below her average of 15. Enneking, in a reserve role, only took 3 shots and scored 1 point. As a team, Butte was 21 for 81 from the field (26 percent) and made just 22 percent of its three-pointers (10 of 45) and 52 percent of its free throws (11 for 21).

The Eagles out-shot Butte across the board, making 38.3 percent of their field goals, 34.8 percent of their three-pointers, and 69 percent from the foul line.

"Our girls took it personal and stepped up on defense," Collier said. "It was a big game in conference, and we needed it to help secure a better playoff spot. That was a big motivation for us. Butte's style of play can get under your skin, so you have to be strong mentally. We did that. The girls kept their heads and stayed focused."

Overall this season, Collier said her team's success "comes down to rebounding and defense, while our offense comes and goes."

The defense was especially good in the second quarter Wednesday night, holding Butte to just 6 points while tying the score at 28-28. Butte was up by 2 going into the fourth quarter, but the Eagles turned on their offensive switch and finished with a 30-17 run.

It was Siskiyous' third win in a row after back-to-back losses to Butte and Shasta in late January.

The 65-61 loss at Shasta was a tough one. The Eagles led at half time 34-31, then got outscored 11-7 in the third quarter and 23-20 in the fourth. They trailed by 5 with 10 seconds to play but got a quick basket and-one from Hubbard to cut it to 2 with about 5 seconds left. Shasta then put it away with its own quick score on a lay-in off the inbounds pass.

"We had two tough games that week and didn't play well in either one," Collier said. "We came together after that, and the girls decided to bear down and stay in it for each other."

They've won three in a row since then, including a 69-57 win over Redwoods at home last Saturday. While Redwoods is 1-6 in conference and 6-17 overall, Collier says they're not a bad team. The Corsairs held a 45-35 lead over the Eagles with 7 minutes left in the third quarter. Then the Eagles found their wings. Allen buried a three, Hubbard made a lay-up, and Collier hit a three from the corner to tie it. Hubbard made another lay-in on a pass from Allen before Collier hit a jumper and a lay-in to cap a 16-2 run. That fired up the crowd and gave the Eagles a 51-47 lead going into the fourth quarter.

The momentum continued. A nice assist from Lange to Freitas increased the lead to 59-51, and after Sannar made an over-the-head shot while getting mauled with her back to the basket, the Eagles led 66-51 with 3:50 to play.

Coach Collier described the four sophomores as "a rare group. They definitely all know their roles and thrive in that. Each one is a leader in different ways. They rotate being captains and show the way for the freshmen on and off the court. Effort is never a problem. They all want to win for the right

reasons. Chemistry is a big deal in basketball, and they bring that to the team. They're fun to coach, and I'll miss them when they're gone."

But big games remain before they leave, starting Tuesday night against Shasta, followed by two non-conference games in a GVC round-robin at Shasta Feb. 20 and 21. The Eagles will face Lassen and Redwoods in games that won't matter for conference but will count in their overall record. Those games were added to the schedule to make up for the games GVC teams lost when Feather River decided not to field a women's team this season.

The Eagles are looking forward to the postseason.

By Steve Gerace