Posted: Live Oak’s bigs carry girls basketball team to 18-point win

When Live Oak needed its depth to step up the most, the girls basketball team’s numbers did just that and more in a 44-26 win over Overfelt Tuesday night.
The Acorns were down three guards, one because of injury and two because of suspensions stemming from an incident Saturday.
Amy Gunther and Jennifer Rosales had been ejected from a game against North Monterey County.
“I believe we have a deep bench and I believe all the girls can play. I have confidence in all the girls,” said coach Mike Kiefer. “It prevailed tonight. One of the key things that I talk about is we are one team, one heartbeat. You can’t do it without being that one team and one heartbeat.”
The Acorns were forced to play with a short guard rotation, but it were the post players who proved their metal Tuesday night.
Kristi Martinez-Kisso led all scorers with 13 points and Julieanna Blotz had a double-double with 12 points and 13 rebounds.
The four post players accounted for 31 of the team’s 44 points.
Frances Giba added six points and Christine Emuka had a first-quarter bucket as the inside game proved devastating for the Royals.
“I’m very, very proud of the four posts. … They gave excellent minutes and I am extremely proud of them,” Kiefer said. “When we needed a point, they were there to put it in.”
Led by eight points from Blotz, the Acorns put up 18 points in the quarter while Overfelt struggled to get baskets to fall.
After the Royals pulled to within one thanks to a 3-pointer from Mary Gagni, they went on a field goal drought that spanned nearly 12 minutes.
The scoring drought was thanks in large part to Overfelt likewise missing key players.
It wasn’t until Gagni hit a two-point jumper with 1:56 to play in half did Overfelt break a 19-1 scoring run for Live Oak.
Meanwhile, Blotz, Martinez-Kisso, Giba, Emuka and Grace Smith all added to Live Oak’s lead.
The Acorns held a 27-8 lead after halftime and went up 40-19 after three quarters.
But the lead belied a problem that Kiefer attributed to the short bench for his guards.
Live Oak committed 28 turnovers for the game. By comparison, the Acorns made 19 field goals.
Kiefer said the issues of ball security should be easy enough to fix as Gunther and Rosales are allowed to return for the next game Thursday at Del Mar.
“I believe we’re a very well conditioned team, but when you don’t have your normal sub rotations … without that third guard, it was really spot subbing,” Kiefer said. “A lot of those turnovers were tired turnovers and that is really easy to correct.”
Despite the turnovers, Overfelt failed to capitalize, hitting just 10 field goals, the majority of which came in the third quarter.
And when the Royals missed, Live Oak was under the basket.
The Acorns out rebounded Overfelt 46-22 for the game. After Blotz’ 13 boards, Martinez-Kisso had nine rebounds, followed by Emuka with six and Fayth Lyon, Courtney Sykes and Cameron O’Connell all with four.
Kiefer said rebounding has been a point of emphasis since the summer, especially knowing that in the Santa Teresa Division, controlling the boards will be the difference in most games.
“Rebounding is a major, major focus. We realize if we don’t rebound, the game can go complete opposite of what we had planned,” Kiefer said. “Fortunately, in this young season, we’ve been able to control the boards on both ends.”
The Acorns will now prepare for Del Mar for a 7 p.m. game on Thursday.