Yesterday we broke down how Cajon’s big girl in the middle, Darshae Burnside, may be the key to this Friday night’s CIF championship game (remember? Click here to read it if you missed it). That said, the bulk of Cajon’s scoring comes from its guards, an efficient shooting group that may be more talented than the squads Poly faced in Troy and Corona Santiago.
Like the Warriors and the Sharks, the Cowgirls of Cajon are for the most part an undersized bunch, which could create some of the mismatches we’ve seen with Poly the last two contests. There are definitely some sharpshooters to worry about along the edges, however—at the top of the list is leading scorer Layshia Clarendon, who’s averaging 20 points per-game. “She’ll drop 30 on you in a heartbeat,” said Poly coach Carl Buggs of Clarendon—after a quiet playoffs, she did just that, throwing in 37 points when the Cowgirls played Lynwood, shooting better than 50% from the field. The senior captain is one of three Cowgirls shooting over 40% from beyond the arc this season.
One of the others is Maya Darby, another perimeter-shooting mid-sized guard, who ripped Wilson apart when they played them in the second round, with 18 points on 60% shooting. Darby certainly isn’t the Cowgirls’ best option (she’s their third-best), but she’s the kind of player who can catch fire and make a mess of things. In Cajon’s two losses on the season, Darby was held to just 9 combined points.
Defensively, neither Clarendon or Darby look like lock-down players, so Poly’s guards should have enough space to run their offense, and maybe some decent passing lanes to dump the ball down to their bigs. The most important thing with Cajon’s shooters is to contest their shots—when Wilson was in their face in the second round, Cajon shot very poorly.
In the first half they missed way more shots than they made, and mustered just 32 points. But then in the third quarter, Wilson’s guards weren’t able to extend to the perimeter because they were inside dealing with Burnside, which left Cajon open to shoot…a lot. Then the Cowgirls started the third quarter on a 20-0 run, an offensive buzzsaw that ended Wilson’s season—in other words, the key to stopping Cajon’s shooters isn’t going to just be on-ball pressure and good positioning: it’s going to be those things for a full 32 minutes. With the game seemingly in hand, Poly has backed off the perimeter in the second half of their last two games, only to watch Santiago and Troy cut their lead to single digits. If they don’t want to get burned by a hot Cajob squad, they’ll need to keep them locked down for four quarters.
Stay tuned for more previews and features tomorrow!