Prep Impressions: Feb. 3, 2011
I covered the Corona Centennial-Corona Santiago girls varsity basketball game for The Press-Enterprise on Thursday, Feb. 3, 2011, and came away thinking that the score was Santiago 73, Centennial 54.
So that’s what I wrote. And it was wrong. Santiago, factually, won 73-53. It was a 20-point victory, not just a 19-point one. The worst part (aside from public humiliation) is that I had the correct score in my stats. There it was C: 53 S: 73.
Ahhhh!
I’m not going to say I’ve never got a score wrong, but it should never happen. EVER. It’s as bad as misspelling a name. And I’ve done that, too. No excuses. I always do my best and I’m not ashamed to say I’ve come up short on several occasions. All I can do is reach out and apologize, and be better organized the next time. It’s sort of an unfortunate fact when one makes as many keystrokes a day as I do. That is, countless. Probably 10s of thousands of keystrokes every day. And mistakes happen. Spellcheck doesn’t catch everything, ya know?
Anyway… Santiago played one heck of a game. Their offensive movement is stunning, and their best offensive player, Chrishae Rowe, is outstanding in a the way Diana Taurasi was outstanding as a prep player at Chino Don Lugo HS a decade-or-so ago.
Rowe (6-foot-1) has skills to match a physicality that simply overwhelmed Centennial on Thursday night. She scored a game-high 31 points on 10 of 21 shooting from the field and 8 of 10 shooting from the line. She picked up 13 or 14 rebounds on mostly loose balls into the lane, and even had one block. She was literally everywhere, and without her the Sharks (22-2 overall, 11-0 Big VIII League) would have almost certainly struggled to win this game.
Centennial (16-8, 8-3) shot well (7 for 19) from three-point range but was out hustled to every loose ball by Rowe and her Sharks teammates. Loose balls are not a stat I keep but I’m thinking Santiago won that row by at least a 2:1 margin.
After halftime the Huskies collapsed upon Rowe but teammate Jadu Khuri came up with seven points in the third quarter to maintain what had been a 35-26 lead. Rowe found more space in the fourth quarter and made 4 of 5 shots, most of which came on second-chance rebounds. She was in the right spots at the right moments, and some of that is instinctual.
And she’s only a sophomore! Did I mention that? She has three very long post-season runs ahead of her, one of them immediately; the playoffs are less than two weeks from starting, and three games remain in the regular season.
QUOTES FORTHCOMING FROM:
Corona Centennial coach Martin Woods
Corona Santiago coach John Perez
Corona Santiago sophomore Chrishae Rowe
INLAND FIELDHOUSE 