By Pete Borello
 Photo by Joe Hu, Town Crier |
Prep Girls Hoop Scoop
Clutch free throws helps MV beat rival
Despite giving away the ball 25 times last Friday, Mountain View High refused to give away the game.
The Spartans (5-2) overcame all these turnovers by making their free throws down the stretch in a 52-48 non-league win at rival Los Altos (2-6).
Mountain View sank 12 of its 16 fouls shots in the final period and needed just about all of them to stave off the Eagles’ fourth-quarter run.
Los Altos, which trailed by 10 points early in the quarter, pulled within 50-48 on Leslie Lam’s layin with 10 seconds to play.
The Eagles then quickly fouled Mountain View’s Emily Stetler, who calmly converted both free throws with 8.5 seconds left to put the game away.
Stetler went 8-for-9 from the line and scored 13 points in all. Teammate Marisa Serapio made 11-of-14 foul shots and finished with a game-high 15 points.
“We’re good at making free throws,” Spartans coach Karl Hawkins said. “I keep saying we’ve got to shoot 65 percent; if we do that, we’ll do just fine. We made 21 of 30 (on Friday) - we’ll take that.”
Mountain View shot 40 percent from the field and was 3-of-7 on three-pointers. Jaclyn Brode made two treys and tallied nine points, while Abby Johnson made all four of her shots to finish with eight points.
The Eagles took nearly twice as many shots (60 to 35) as the Spartans, but had trouble finding the net. Los Altos, which shot just 28.3 percent, made only five of its 28 shots in the first half and trailed 21-16 at intermission.
The Eagles finally got rolling early in the third quarter. Lindsey Stephens’ follow of an Emily Reid miss gave Los Altos a 24-23 lead, its first advantage since getting off to a 4-0 start.
The Spartans regained the lead for good on their next possession when Serapio connected on two of her three free throws. after getting fouled on a three-point attempt. It was the second time in the quarter that the Eagles fouled Serapio from long range, which didn’t please coach Ron Williams.
“That hurt us,” Williams said. “But we’re a very young team, we only have two seniors, and we need time to develop.”
Los Altos also had trouble taking care of the ball, committing 19 turnovers.
Scoring-wise, the Eagles were led by Stephens’ 10 points. Alyce Jorgensen tallied nine points, all in the final quarter. The Herrera sisters, Jennifer and Kristin, scored nine and seven points, respectively, but were a combined 5-of-24 from the field.
Los Altos visits Pioneer at 7 p.m., Friday; Mountain View opens play in the Cupertino Tournament on Thursday.
Panthers prevail
Pinewood, ranked No. 1 in the Central Coast Section, edged host St. Ignatius 52-51 Saturday to win the Sand Dune Classic.
Sarah Feely scored 13 points for the Panthers (3-0) and Katy Digovich added 12.
SF stops Presentation
Behind 13 points from Ellen Porshneva, St. Francis took care of visiting Presentation 46-42 Friday.
Holly Cann contributed 10 points for the Lancers (2-4) and Jennifer Bow had eight.
