At halftime of Wednesday’s girls’ basketball game between Poly and Millikan, it seemed like it might be déjà vu for the upset-happy Rams—despite a poor opening, hot shooting helped them rebound to tie the game at 23 at the intermission.  But a dominant defensive effort from Poly, plus some knockdown shooting of their own, led the Rabbits to a 62-32 win that keeps them perfect in league.

Poly roared out to an 11-0 lead, the highlight of which was the return of Thaddesia Southall, getting her first minutes since her knee injury, with 1:37 left in the first quarter.  Southall, in limited action, looked natural and mobile (she said afterwards the knee “felt fine”), and finished with 0 points, four rebounds, and two fouls.  But, although they didn’t score until there were just 38 seconds left in the quarter, Millikan went on a 9-0 run extending into the second quarter, then went blow for blow with Poly in the second quarter, as some streaky shooting paid off.

Rachel Flores was the hero, going 3/3 from beyond the arc, but the Rams as a team were an astounding 5/6 in the first half—even more astounding since they were 2/10 from inside the arc, many of those misses coming in the paint.

In the second half, Poly’s guards moved up on the Millikan shooters, and didn’t give them any space to get shots off; the Rams were just 1/7 in the second.  In general Poly pressured Millikan into a lot of turnovers, and held the Rams to just 9 points in the third and fourth quarters, while exploding for 39 of their own, thanks to hot shooters like leading scorer Brittany Wilson, who finished with 18 on 7/11 shooting.  “I think we can be a great shooting team at times,” she said after the game.  “Once we take our time and set, we can hit ’em as well as any team I’ve seen.”  Sheila Boykin was the leading rebounder with 8 boards, while Flores led Millikan with 10 points, and Hilary Drinovsky pulled down six boards despite being hampered by an elbow injury sustained against Jordan.

There weren’t many flaws in Poly’s defense in the second half—they only allowed four field goals, they didn’t commit a foul until two minutes into the fourth quarter, and they converted turnovers into easy buckets.  The only problem, in coach Carl Buggs’ eyes, was that it took until the second half to see it.  “We’re still not at the defensive level I’d like to be at,” he said.  “I’m a big fan of thinking that our defense creates our offense.”  If Poly can play 32 minutes of their second-half defense, that could mean an awful lot of offense.

Millikan will host Cabrillo on Friday, then visit Compton next week to wrap up league play; Poly hosts second-place Jordan on Friday, and will play the Jags and Tarbabes next week.  They also have a huge game against national top-twenty Whitney Young from Chicago this Saturday evening.