Posted on 23 January 2014 by La Habra Journal
Zach Gray went down with an ankle injury in the second quarter and didn’t return. It is unsure how much time the senior guard could miss.
by Sarah Fenton
La Habra Journal
The La Habra boys’ basketball team lost a close game against Troy, 62-61, on Wednesday at La Habra High School.
The Highlanders (12-7, 1-2) came back, trailing by two, in the last few minutes of the game after being down by 10 points early in the fourth quarter.
David Desatoff hit a three-pointer with 40 seconds left in the game, putting the Highlanders ahead, 61-60.
La Habra played hard on defense to keep the lead, but Troy’s Josh Carnesi got an offensive rebound and sank a jump shot at the buzzer to give the Warriors the victory.
“I was hoping we would rebound in the second half,” said David Ploog, La Habra head coach. “We did a good job again but I really wanted to focus on putting pressure on them and really attacking the basket because that would have helped us out. I don’t think we did it enough. We did it in the first but we didn’t do it the whole game.”
La Habra dominated the first quarter on offense, but fouls gave Troy (12-8, 2-1) easy points. The game was tied 17-17 going into the second quarter.
Both teams continued to play aggressive in the second quarter. Zach Gray got tied up with a Troy defender and went down with an ankle injury with four minutes remaining in the first half.
“It’s a bad turn,” Ploog said. “He reinjured it so sometimes that may take a while because it’s already weak. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Desatoff ended the first half with a reverse layup at the buzzer. The Highlanders trailed the Warriors, 29-27.
“We wanted to get inside in the second half because that’s definitely one of our strengths,” Ploog said. “That’s what we were planning on doing the whole game. We did a better job of it in the second half, but we missed a lot of shots that we should have made and we missed a lot of free throws.”
Both teams came back fighting in the second half. Troy pushed the ball on offense, holding on to their lead at the end of the third quarter, 44-40.
Fouls dominated the fourth quarter for both teams. Adam Cooley led the Highlanders in scoring with 25 points.
La Habra plans to refocus its attention on Friday’s game against Sonora at Sonora High School.
“We’re tired so we’re just going to do a lot of shootarounds and go over Sonora’s plan and just kind of prepare that way,” Ploog said. “We’ll just talk through and make sure that we’re ready.”
Kaili Peko led the Lady Highlanders with eight points in a tough loss against Troy, Wednesday night at home.
GIRLS VARSITY
The La Habra girls’ basketball team suffered its first league loss against Troy, 70-26, on Wednesday at La Habra High School.
The Lady Highlanders (9-9, 2-1) played hard throughout the game, but Troy’s experience on the court proved to be challenging for La Habra’s young team to keep up with.
“We’re a young team and we work with what we have that comes to the program so we have to still teach them to come to the ball, look up for it, and make some smart passes, but that will come,” said Jim Bohn, La Habra head coach.
La Habra had a tough time connecting passes and getting rebounds in the first quarter which allowed Troy (13-5, 3-0) to take the lead, 20-9, going into the second quarter.
The Warrior’s full court press made it hard for the Highlanders to push the ball down the court.
Troy moved the ball around well and pushed the ball down the middle, but two big blocks by Ashleigh Bessler slowed down its offense. The Warriors led 44-16 going into halftime.
“In the second half we wanted to control the turnovers, one basket at a time, work as hard as we can and give our best effort,” Bohn said. “We didn’t quit, we played until the end and that’s all I can ask from them, that they do their best.”
The Highlanders continued to play hard in the second half. Hannah McArthur had a block early in the third quarter followed by a layup by Megan Chancellor.
The Warriors quickly fought back and tightened up their defense, which allowed them to carry their lead, 63-22, into the fourth quarter.
La Habra slowed down Troy’s offense in the last quarter, but Troy continued to play solid defense. Kaili Peko led the Highlanders in scoring with eight points and Megan Chancellor followed with seven points.
“We want to play hard. We went in knowing we had to eliminate turnovers and we didn’t do that today,” Bohn said. “Troy is a great team, but it is what it is.”
La Habra’s next league game will be against Sonora on Friday at Sonora High School.
“I think we have to regroup a little bit. Tomorrow we’ll get back at it. We go over to Sonora, which is another good team and it’s a great place to play basketball,” Bohn said. “We have to go in there and learn from what we did here and try to be better at controlling the tempo and the basketball.”