File photos – Lily Hoban

By Ray Hamill — Once the inevitable disappointment of their season-ending loss in women’s basketball dissipates, the Corsairs have every reason to feel proud of what they achieved this winter.

The College of the Redwoods women fell 83-51 to Sierra College in their playoff opener on Wednesday night in a game that was closer than the final scoreline would suggest.

CR finished the season with a record of 11-15, but they played a tough early-season schedule and placed second in the Golden Valley Conference, behind only the No. 1 team in the state (Butte), which is always a respectable achievement.

Head coach Jain Tuey continues to do a good job with the Corsairs, and considering the difficulties and logistical challenges of fielding a winning team on one of the most remote community college campuses in the state, any time a CR team qualifies for the playoffs it should be considered a success.

“We kind of have to recognize that and remember that,” Tuey said after Wednesday’s loss. “We did make the playoffs and we worked extremely hard to get there.

“The girls deserved that and they worked really hard all season. We’re trying to make them see what they did was a good accomplishment.”

Most importantly, the four CR sophomores will leave CR as better players than when they got here, and the coaching staff — which also includes assistants Ashley Quigley and Calvin Johnson II — continue to do a good job getting the most out of the roster.

The four sophomores — Molly Slayton, Lily Shelton, Lily Hoban and Ronnee Norwood — stuck it out despite a lot of adversity over the past two seasons, or three seasons in the case of Shelton, who had a medical red-shirt last year.

“It does take a lot of work to get to where we did, and there were games where the score doesn’t reflect how good we were,” Tuey added.

Including Wednesday’s loss, which got away from the team late after they matched up effectively against the higher seeded Sierra women for much of the night.

Kyla Albee

It was never going to be an easy matchup traveling to play a higher seed in a postseason showdown. 

Lower seeds rarely win these type of games.

“Obviously we knew had a tough game ahead of us after the long travel, and there was a lot of emotion going in,” the coach said. “We were hanging with them and playing extremely tough basketball, we just could not get any shots to fall.”

Several of the CR players performed well despite the loss, including freshman Kyla Albee and Ellie Pesch, who each scored a team-high 10 points.

Albee also had six rebounds and showcased her hustle on defense with a team-high four steals.

Olivia Railsback

Lily Shelton

Hoban, Shelton and Norwood each also closed out their CR careers with solid performances.

Hoban finished with eight points, while Norwood had six points and a team-best eight boards.

Shelton and Alia Prentiss each added six points, while Olivia Railsback finished with a team-high five assists.

That balance epitomized this year’s team.

“Again it was a collective group effort,” Tuey said. “We had pretty balanced scoring, just not enough. But the score definitely did not reflect how we played.”