JSerra girls basketball crushes Bonita in second half to advance in CIF-SS playoffs ...Middle East

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – They were inefficient on offense and couldn’t keep up on defense. When they looked like they were ready to rally, there was always a response. On a night when Bonita’s girls basketball team needed to be perfect, it was not.

A long trip to JSerra for the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs was just as long on the way back, courtesy of sophomore Kayla Rice and a resounding second half. The host Lions scored a 66-39 victory to advance to a second-round matchup at San Clemente on Saturday.

With its victory, JSerra improved to 18-10. Bonita ended its season at 22-7.

Rice scored 25 points for JSerra, and she was complemented by Rosie Santos’ 15 and Vivian Grenald’s 12.

“Going into the game, we knew we had to be damn-near perfect in our precision on boths ides of the floor,” Bonita coach Taylor Anderson said. “JSerra missed a lot of shots in the first half, but they hit the big shots. We had a lot of wasted and empty possessions where we weren’t executing and getting the shots we wanted. There was a real lack of precision on our end.”

Tressa Beatty scored 13, Brooke Van Duyne 12, and Lexi Mercado 7 for Bonita – but it needed a lot more. The Bearcats averaged 51 points a game this season.

Bonita had nine turnovers by halftime and was only 6 of 20 from the field; JSerra was 10 of 30. Remarkably, the Bearcats were down only 22-16 despite being down by as many as 11 with less than a minute left in the second quarter.

“Bonita had the momentum at halftime,” JSerra coach Phil Talleur admitted. “We can play rough and undisciplined, like we did in the first half. But this is a team that finds a way to win.”

The way to victory Thursday was paved with rice – Kayla Rice. She scored 14 of her 25 points in the third quarter. Included in that spree was eight of nine points in a stretch that doomed any hopes of a Bonita victory.

Bonita’s Mercado opened the third with a 3-pointer, but JSerra’s Santos answered with a 16-footer. Van Duyne added another 3-pointer as Bonita showed the kind of team that it expected to be. Van Duyne’s basket cut the JSerra lead to 24-22. But Rice responded with a bucket, and Santos drove the lane to go up 28-22.

Bonita’s Jayden Uballe scored underneath with 5 minutes 42 seconds left in the third quarter to cut the JSerra lead to 28-24.

Then Rice threw down the gauntlet. She scored on a fastbreak. She followed with a three-point play. After Santos made the first of two free throws, Rice scored a second chance basket and converted for another three-point play. Then she scored inside off a nifty pass from Shae Talleur. The margin was 39-26 and JSerra was basically out of the woods.

After that run, Rice knew the Bearcats were done.

“We just needed to keep playing our game and it would be OK,” she said.

Rice scored 14 to Bonita’s 16 in the third as JSerra took a 44-32 lead into the fourth quarter.

When JSerra’s Talleur opened the fourth quarter with a 3, the rout was on. By the time Van Duyne connected on another 3-pointer, JSerra had extended its lead to 58-32.

“We were only up by six at halftime and I knew we had to step it up in the third quarter,” Rice said. “And we came out and crushed them.

“We just go out and keep playing because we know what we can do as a team, and know that we have to respond. It was a great game. First Division 1 win feels pretty good.”

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