By my calculation, the Poly and Millikan girls’ basketball teams are traveling a combined 121.2 miles tonight to play in the CIF quarterfinals—and both will face talented squads, and likely rowdy crowds, when they arrive at their destination.
Millikan is 70.7 miles away from campus as they travel out to Perris to face the Perris Panthers. The Panthers have a solid team, to be sure, but Millikan will mostly need to be focused on their top two scorers, Destini Mason, and Kiyana Stamps, if they want to come home with a victory. Mason is a 5’10” guard, who’s averaging 16 points per-game, who also usually knocks down a few long ones—she also distributes the ball effectively, with four assists per game. Stamps is more of an inside presence, with 17 points per-game, and seven boards to go along with it. Natasha Hadley is the Panthers’ starting center—Hadley leads the team in rebounds, and scores around nine points per-game. The Rams match up well enough with Stamps and Mason, but they’ll need Hilary Drinovsky and Candice Menefee to continue their excellent postseason defensive effort to bottle up Hadley. If Millikan can keep the Panthers to the perimeter, and prevent Hadley from getting on a roll (she does have the ability to take a game over), they should have plenty to celebrate on the long ride back west.
The Jackrabbits have a slightly shorter ride, since they’re a mere 50.5 miles away from campus, as they head east to face the Corona Santiago Sharks, helmed by head coach John Perez. The Sharks are 23-6, but don’t have many quality wins—they’ve posted losses to Troy and Perris, both playoff teams. When they do win against top-tier opponents, it’s by scoring. A lot. They played Perris early in the season and won with a 71-point effort. Later they played the Panthers again, scored 51—and lost.
Poly coach Carl Buggs is mostly concerned with containing that Sharks offense. “They can all shoot—they’re small, but they can shoot. It’s penetrate, drive, and kick. They’re going to have a big, rowdy crowd there so we can’t get behind early, we have to establish ourselves.”
The Jackrabbits do have a fairly significant size advantage over the Sharks, who don’t list a single six-footer on their roster—that means if the Jackrabbits want to get in control and stay in control, they’ll need Monique Oliver, Thaddesia Southall, and maybe Ta’nitra Byrd off the bench to have good games. If they can dominate the paint, their guards should be able to put some outside pressure on the Sharks’ shooters.
The main names they’ll have to worry about are Jasmine and Cinnamon Lister, junior guards (both 5’5″) who handle the ball very well. Buggs says they also have an athletic forward in Cebrina Johnson, a junior who stands 5’8″, and is averaging 12 points and 7 boards a game. But it’s the outside shooting that will be the biggest challenge—the Sharks’ twins average 34 points a game together, mostly from the perimeter. As a team, the Sharks shoot 35% from beyond the arc. Poly, for comparison, shoots 25%.
If they can maintain a strong paint presence, get out on the Sharks’ diminutive snipers, and run the floor with Santiago—all while keeping their crowd from getting too involved in the early-goings—the Jackrabbits bus should be bumping all the way back to Atlantic.