Fairbanks’ Monroe Catholic Rams girls basketball team was rested and composed inside the George Houston Gymnasium Saturday night, earning a 40-33 win over the Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé Crimson Bears, just one night after falling 52-40 to their hosts.
“I give it up to Monroe,” JDHS coach Tanya Nizich said. “Monroe has a good squad. They played us hard and made it very difficult for us to get an offense going.”
JDHS sophomore Layla Tokuoka led the Crimson Bears girls with 11 points and senior Cailynn Baxter led with nine rebounds.
“I think I need to just step up and calm the team so they are not overwhelmed,” Tokuoka said. “Just don’t look at all the bad things. We did have some good things throughout the game and we just need to have a positive mindset for our future games.”
Added Baxter, “I think we just need to be a little tougher. They are a top 3A team. They are physical. I think we just need to execute our plays. We really struggle with finishing a play. We need to slow it down a little. And we need to get low. Our height takes our physicalness away so we’ve got to really get low.”
Monroe sophomore Leila Church led the Rams with a game-high 14 points.
“We just knew we couldn’t play scared,” Church said. “We had to play with confidence and that is what we did. This win will definitely help our RPI and it is just really big for us.”
JDHS senior Kerra Baxter had the Crimson Bears on the scoreboard first with a steal and layup 40 seconds into play. Monroe junior Trinity Turiel answered with a steal and fed senior Shannel Kovalsky for a layup to tie the score.
Blue Jays vs. Athletics Highlights
Tokuoka hit a sideline jumper to regain the lead, but Monroe senior country wise email marketing list Desiree Redfox connected from past the arc for a 5-4 advantage, the Rams’ only lead of the first half.
C. Baxter would earn a hard rebound and feed junior guard Gwen Nizich for a shot past the arc, and K. Baxter hit a free throw for an 8-5 lead.
C. Baxter would pull down three more rebounds,
but JDHS could not find the net and Monroe tied the game with a free throw by Church and another shot inside by Kovalsky.
JDHS senior Addison Wilson hit a shot past the arc with 18 seconds left in the stanza for an 11-8 advantage.
Tokuoka hit a pair of free throws to open the second quarter and both teams appeared to want to control the pace, with multiple rebounds, steals and turnovers through the stanza, but they could not capitalize on the scoreboard.
JDHS’ Tokuoka would draw an offensive foul on Monroe’s Church jdhs girls fall to monroe on saturday for possession and C. Baxter scored for a 15-8 lead with three minutes left in the half.
Monroe’s defense stepped up to stop JDHS from an clean email inbounds pass and Rams senior Desiree Redfox scored to cut the lead to 15-10.
JDHS senior Mary Johnson hit a jump shot for a 17-10 advantage, and had a steal and fed Tokuoka, who drove through traffic for a 19-10 lead.