Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Marcos Rosales in action for CR on Wednesday night.

By Ray Hamill — A slow start to Wednesday night’s championship showdown at College of the Redwoods proved costly for the home team, as the CR men saw their hopes of a second straight conference title slip away.

Redwoods hosted Feather River with the Golden Valley Conference championship on the line, but it was the visitors who came out fired up for the big showdown and opened up a 14-0 while holding the home team scoreless for the opening five minutes.

And that would ultimately prove to be the difference in an 80-72 loss for Redwoods (7-2 in conference), which fell two wins behind the Golden Eagles (9-0) with one game remaining for each school.

The CR women also hosted Feather River on Wednesday and won 57-52 to improve to 7-2 in the GVC (15-10 overall) and keep their slender championship hopes alive.

However, with conference leaders Butte (8-1) beating Siskiyous (6-3) on Wednesday, the Roadrunners maintained their one-win lead over CR and all but wrapped up the GVC crown.

Butte can clinch the title with a win over Shasta on Monday.

Still, the Redwoods women can clinch second in conference with a win over Lassen at CR on Monday, which would cap an impressive turnaround from a year ago when they finished 2-6 in the GVC.

“I am proud of our team for working hard the entire game and defending well,” CR women’s head coach Bree Northern said. “We used our defense to fuel our offense and it allowed us to come out on top in the end.”

Nora Talty led the hosts with 16 points, while Mayleah Jackson also impressed and added 14 points, including going 6-for-6 at the free-throw line.

Jackson nailed all four of her free throws in the fourth quarter to help see CR over the finish line.

“I thought Feather River did a great job defending us tonight,” Northern added. “They made it very difficult for us to get the ball inside and ultimately made us shoot the 3.

“We weren’t hitting from beyond the arc, so it was more of a defensive battle.”

Paityn Erlenbush added 11 points in the win, while Itzel Torres chipped in nine points, 

Both games were played in front of a large home crowd.

“Thank you to the amazing crowd tonight that helped bring energy to our team during the game,” Northern said. 

The CR men, meanwhile, trailed wire to wire in their game after their 0-14 start to the night.

To their credit, the Redwoods players battled hard all night, cutting the deficit to as few as three later in the opening half thanks to an 11-2 run, but the visitors quickly stretched their lead back out to nine and they carried a 37-30 advantage into the break.

The second half was back-and-forth, but the Golden Eagles maintained a healthy advantage throughout and never really appeared in danger of allowing their lead slip away.

Marcos Rosales had a good night offensively in the loss, which dropped CR to 18-9 overall.

Rosales finished with a team-high 21 points, including 16 in the second half, while teammate Luka Radovanovic added 18 points.

Alfonso Medina scored 16 in the loss, while Nate Sweet had eight points and Jack Clancy chipped in five points.

The CR men will close out the regular season against Lassen on Monday afternoon.

The women tip off at 1 p.m. on Monday, followed by the men at 3.