Submitted photo – Eureka seniors Kaitlin Giacone, Marin Matteoli and Isis Poteet after Saturday’s championship game.
The Eureka Loggers continued their impressive start to the new girls basketball season with a comfortable 74-29 win over Enterprise in the championship game at the Gridley tournament on Saturday afternoon.
The win was the team’s third in three days at the tournament and lifts the Loggers to 5-1 on the season.
The game, however, was close until late in the first half, but senior Mallorie Beauchamp and freshman Tiara Maualuga hit back-to-back 3s in the final minute of the second quarter to put the Loggers up 15 at the break and they pulled away after that.
Senior Isis Poteet was named tournament MVP, while Kaitlin Giacone was named to the all-tournament team.
Samara Gaither scored a team-high 15 points in the win, while Maualuga added 13 points and Giacone and Beauchamp both finished with 12 points.
The Eureka girls began to take control of the game with their press in the third quarter, but pulled the trap back to half court after stretching the lead to 20.
However, the Enterprise coach asked them to continue their press to better prepare his players for their season and the game became more of a scrimmage after that.
“We got to fine tune our press and they got better at breaking a press,” Napoleon said.
Categories: Basketball, Eureka
Breaking a press all depends on quick ball movement to runners, stand still and you are dead stuck.
Partly, the task at hand is testing how far up the court the press can be broken… in order for an easier layup or shot or simply to hold and set-up in your half court offense… but ideally, ya want to punish the press with easy scoring opportunities, thus wearing the press down or forcing the defensive strategy to change…
…passing drills come in handy, along with dribble and drive under pressure drills…