Girls Hoops: Lancers Fall Short Against St. Anthony

For two quarters, La Salle’s strategy of a revolving door of different defensive looks paid off in a big way.

On nearly every possession, St. Anthony 6-foot-3 star forward Kendall Cooper encountered something new. She was doubled and tripled teamed, she sometimes faced zones and other times just a single defender marked her. Though the Lancers were short on size and talent in comparison to St. Anthony, their gameplan allowed them to hang toe-to-toe with the Saints and entered halftime tied up at 19.

But it’s as the 10th-seeded Lancers found out in the second half, it’s next to impossible to completely negate the Saints’ size. Cooper eventually found a way to assert herself down low en route to a 18-point night and the No. 2 Saints got contributions from a couple of other players to pull away for a 49-35 victory Wednesday night in the quarterfinals of the CIF-Southern Section Division 4A girls basketball playoffs.

“We got a little bit discombobulated in our zone and what we were doing,” Lancers coach Kevin Cormier said. “We lost some box outs and stuff that we wanted to get so that was a big key to the game.”

It was apparent from the beginning that the Lancers (19-11) were at a disadvantage in the paint. In addition to Cooper, the Saints had 6-foot Jourdan Cooper and 6-foot-1 Natalie Williams. The two Coopers each scored an early bucket as St. Anthony jumped out to a quick 6-0 lead.

But then La Salle’s defensive strategy began to slow down the Saints, and La Salle scored the next seven points of the game. While St. Anthony took an 8-7 lead into the second quarter, it was clear the Saints' offense was out of sync.

“We wanted (Kendall Cooper) to see different looks every time down,” Cormier said. “So we did a lot of different things, so she didn’t see the same thing twice and it worked for a half.

“ … We went to a triangle-and-two, we went man a little bit, we went to a 1-2-2 zone, we went 2-3. This is the quarterfinals, we threw everything at them.”

La Salle’s defense wasn’t the only thing that gave St. Anthony problems. Lancers freshman guard Kandyce Smith was unstoppable off the dribble throughout the first half, leading La Salle with nine points.

But after halftime, St. Anthony made the necessary adjustments to take over the game. The Saints started to deny Smith the ball on the inbounds, never letting her become a part of the offense. Smith didn’t score in the second half, and she spent much of the time sitting on the bench while Denise Peterson ran the show.

“(Smith’s) coming back from injury so we kind of doing want to risk it with her and push it too much,” Cormier said. “We just felt we were better with Peterson out there, so that’s what we went with.”

The Saints scored the first six points of the half to take a 25-19 lead and entered the final quarter up 32-25. Cooper then scored seven of the first nine points of the fourth period to put St. Anthony up 39-27.

Cooper finished with 11 rebounds and four blocks to go along with her 18 points, while senior Raquel Johnson added 12 points.

La Salle senior Itos Aikhionbare finished with a game-high 20 points.