Lady Bulldogs lose Mount Hamilton Division opener 51-38
MORGAN HILL — Hardly anything went according to plan for Sobrato in its Blossom Valley Athletic League-Mount Hamilton Division debut Wednesday.
Missing injured point guard Melissa Cachopo was only the beginning.
The undersized Lady Bulldogs committed 31 turnovers, shot an icy 13 for 50 (26 percent) from the field and struggled for offensive rhythm until late in the second half.
Then there were the missed wide-open layups, the most glaring part of a 51-38 loss to Santa Teresa in Sobrato Gym.
“We must have missed 10 of those. There’s the difference in the game right there,” Sobrato coach Natalie Bobuk said. “We’re going to practice a lot of those. It’s the little things like that; the little things we’ve been talking about in practice, like getting a body on the ball and making layups. I feel like we could have won this game tonight.”
The Bulldogs (8-4 overall, 0-1 BVAL) settled for their first division loss in almost a year, albeit in a tougher conference. Their last defeat was on Jan. 21, 2008.
“This was hard to take,” said guard Sarina Santiago, who paced Sobrato with eight points and four rebounds. “We wanted to keep running and keep up the momentum even though (Cachopo) wasn’t there. I think we have some good players than can step up.”
Santiago took over at shooting guard for Courtney Sedlak, who ran the point in place of Cachopo. Santa Teresa coach Sean Peterson tweaked his defense accordingly.
“We knew they had an injury with Cachopo, so we just wanted to put pressure on them,” Peterson said. “We just wanted to come out strong in our first league game and control the tempo.”
The Saints (7-4, 1-0) commanded the boards, getting a big night from Madison Sanders-Curry and Marisol Gonzalez. Sanders-Curry, a 5-foot-11 forward, collected a double-double with 14 points and a dozen rebounds, and Gonzalez had eight points to go with seven rebounds and three steals.
Santa Teresa also got nine points from Angelica Carrasco and Aisha Newick.
“Madison carried the load for us tonight,” Peterson said. “Our size really helped. That’s been our bread and butter so far this season. We’ve created a lot of mismatches.”
The Bulldogs battled through those, but were hand-cuffed by poor shooting. They made 1 of 11 from the field in the second quarter, while Santa Teresa snowballed 10 takeaways into 21 points. The Saints finished the period on a 15-1 scoring run to lead 28-12 at halftime.
Sobrato’s only field goal in the quarter came from forward Priyanka Kumar, who came off the bench to net a team-high eight points on 3-of-6 shooting.
“Looking at the scores by quarter, it was really just the second quarter that hurt us,” Bobuk said. “We weren’t playing as aggressive as we should have.”
Even as Santa Teresa built its biggest lead — 45-24 — of the game on Newick’s base-line drive to start the fourth quarter, the Bulldogs seemed far from beaten. Michelle Bradley and Sedlak sparked a late rally, scoring six points apiece in the final 15 minutes, and helped cut the deficit nearly in half.
Playing in her first game this season, Sobrato’s Shealyn Kunze sank a layup on a breakaway drive in transition, then — a half-minute later — kicked the ball out to Santiago for a short jumpshot, making it 49-36 with 1:21 remaining.
Using a full-court press, the Bulldogs forced 10 takeaways in the fourth quarter.
“We stepped up and came through in the end,” Bobuk said. “I think if we played all four quarters as well as we played in the second half, we would have won this game.”
Kunze finished with four points, tying teammate Gabi Gamez. Forward Katie Nicca added seven rebounds, three points and two steals for the Bulldogs, who travel to Prospect on Friday for a 5 p.m. game.
“We were getting on them to know they can play with these kinds of teams,” Bobuk said. “Losing isn’t the end of the world. We’ll play Santa Teresa again with a full roster. That’s probably the best thing to take from this.”
