WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
CR’s women’s team, meanwhile, dropped a tough one at home Saturday to Marin, 74-67. Head coach Bree Northern said, “I thought we started the game off well and set the tone. But then Marin did a really good job of pressuring us in the half court, which ultimately led to us turning over the ball a lot in the second quarter, causing us to go down by 11 at half.”
However, she added, “I am proud of my team for how hard they fought, especially in the second half. They never gave up. We just came up short in the end. I want to shout out the crowd that came out to the game today, it meant so much to us to see the support from the community, fans, family and friends.”
Steve Watson
Addison Wingate goes up for a shot for Redwoods. (Steve Watson)
Nora Talty led Redwoods with 20 points and 13 rebounds, while Caidence Young scored 15 on 4-of-8 shooting from deep. Paityn Erlenbush had 11.
“Nora continues to be a driving force for our team,” Northern said. “Caidence stepped up and hit some really big shots for us, Paitlyn continues to battle inside and is doing a great job in the paint.”
Asked for the message to her girls afterward, Northern first commended Marin for “taking us out of our offense and we did struggle with their half-court trap. So that’s exactly what teams are going to try is to take us out of what we do.”
She continued, “I just told my team, ‘Even though we lost, we did a really good job.’ Down at halftime, we fought back, we even were tied or took the lead for a bit in the third or fourth quarter, so lots to build on from that game, and we’ll keep that momentum going and get ready for this weekend.”
Next weekend the team plays at the Shasta College Crossover against Solano at 5 p.m. and Yuba at noon on Friday and Saturday, respectively. Looking forward to the matchups, Northern said, “We can’t play scared anymore. We’ve got to go into games and not worry about who’s in front of us, but take care of business. I really do want to say thank you to the community, family, friends, that all came out to support us and the local girls from Marin’s team as well. It was great to see everybody out there.”
MEN’S BASKETBALL
The College of the Redwoods men’s basketball team was down in Sonora this past weekend for the Columbia College Tournament, and opened Saturday against the host team, losing 83-102. Marcos Rosales paced Redwoods with 26 points, Cody Whitmer netting 13 and Kalen Erlenbush 11.
“We knew going in it was going to be a tough, physical battle,” said CR head coach Justin Claus. “Columbia plays one of the most bruising styles in California, anchored by the best individual rebounder in the state and a roster full of guys who make tremendous plays on the glass. It takes full, undivided focus just to secure defensive rebounds against them. Our group was mentally up for that challenge, but we still have work to do in learning how to succeed physically in these types of games.”
But threes turned out to be a problem.
“We also bet the wrong way defensively,” he continued. “We emphasized building a wall in transition, taking away driving gaps, and living with off-the-dribble transition threes. Even though they average around six made threes per game, they hit six in the first six minutes and 11 by halftime. Columbia was locked in and played extremely well.”
Rosales also had eight assists for Redwoods, while Erlenbush and Alfonso Medina each gathered six rebounds.
“We knew they could shoot it, but also knew we were going to struggle if we let them get into their normal drive-and-kick stuff. So we played back a bit to start, and they immediately just came out and made shots that we were willing to live with at the beginning, the issue came when we didn’t adjust after and let guys get hot, and they started having a game. Three players hit three threes, they looked comfortable, and we took too long to adjust back out of that original game plan. We did have a great film session yesterday where we showed them they had the right attention and focus towards what we needed to do in terms of keeping them off the glass and stopping their drives, but right now we’re a good team and for us to be a great team there can’t be any letup, not just making the right play sometimes, and being extraordinarily focused for 40 minutes to compete with the top teams in the state. We were good, just not good enough that night.”
In their next game against West Hills Coalinga on Sunday, Redwoods bounced back with a 78-55 win. Whitmer had 17, Medina 14, and Nate Sweet 12 in the win. Claus said Coalinga made them uncomfortable early with aggressive pressure, face-guarding Rosales and pressuring every ballhandler. This allowed them to “disrupt our routes and frustrate us offensively,” he said.
But a halftime plea for more physical play and taking pride in resistance allowed CR to step up in the second half.
Claus said the opposition had a quick athlete that attempted to take Rosales out of the game, and believed his squad adjusted well, and “Alfonso did a lot of work bringing the ball up the court, as he had a mismatch. Our team did a decent job, especially in the second half, exploiting the way the team was trying to defend us.” He said Rosales turned into an excellent screener to help his teammates get buckets.
CR hosts the Coach Tregs Classic this coming weekend at home, with Southwestern Oregon Community College, a familiar foe, starting Redwoods’ action at 7 p.m. Friday. They then play Mendocino College at 3 p.m. Saturday. Feather River will also be in the field for what Claus said would be “across the four games, some high-quality and entertaining basketball” in CR’s first home matchups this year after five weekends on the road.
After a quick turnaround getting home on Sunday night, SWOCC is a squad Claus said his team has traditionally had some great games against in the last five seasons. “The tough part for us is that we have so much learning to do about ourselves right now,” said Claus. “And we don’t want to peek forward when we had a lot of learning opportunities this past weekend that we want to capitalize on. We’re really focusing on us, and turning our sights to SWOCC later in the week.”
Ken McCanless can be reached at 707-441-0526.