By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
JEFFERSON, Ore. — Aziza Saad came out firing for the Jefferson Girls Basketball team Wednesday night against Taft, scoring 26 first half points, to pace a Lions squad that led the Tigers 33-23 entering the second half.
“It was really good momentum to keep going and us hyped,” said Saad, who connected on six of her eight three-pointers in the firsy half. “Coming into this week we were down a starter, and not the best, but we all knew that we had to step up and so we held the momentum and had a good passing game. We really trusted each other in that one.”
But Taft would make adjustments to their gameplan entering the second half, and quickly got back into the contest.
They got the deficit down to four, 42-38, with 2:26 left in the third and were hanging around before eventually trading the lead with the Lions in the closing minutes of the PacWest Conference contest.
“We did a better job defensively on (Saad), but the problem is, we lost sight of some of their role players and some of their role players got easy looks,” said Taft Head Coach Jake Tolan. “And that’s what ultimately beat us, they got contributions from some girls that if we’re defending better, they don’t get easy looks around the hoop.”
KenIe Williams scored all eight of her points in the second half, Luella Campbell contributed a other five points and Genevieve Orton scored another four in the second half each to help Jefferson keep pace with the surging Tigers squad. Taft outscored the Lions 34-25 in the second half.
“We outscored them in the second half, but we gave up 33 in the first half. Can’t do that. But like I told the girls. I’m proud of them. They gave us a chance to win in the end. We just came up one point short, maybe a couple of free throws, maybe one more stop. It is what it is,” said Tolan.
And that’s what this game came down to, the little things that led towards the final result. A final result that saw Jefferson defeat Taft 58-57 and pulled the two teams into a two-way tie for second-place in the PacWest Conference with a week-and-a-half left in the regular season.
It was really nice at the end. When we get those open shots, we don’t alway finish. We finished with contact, which we don’t always do and that’s really important.”
Jefferson, who saw Campbell finish with ten points as the other Lion scorer in double-figures, will head to Amity on Friday. Laney Lee led the Tigers with 22 points as Taft will host Dayton on Friday.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
