Girls Hoops, tonight’s second round: Bonita absolutely dominant; Duarte winning streak swells to 23 games, Bishop Amat beats Irvine 40-38, Wilson’s dream season ends; Northview loses, coach Jeff Butler retires

CIF-SS Girls Hoops
Wednesday’s second round schedule
All games at 7 p.m.
Division 1A

Troy at Chino Hills
Division 3AA
Diamond Ranch at Arroyo Grande
Division 3A
Bishop Amat at Temescal Canyon
Bonita at Palos Verdes
Division 4A
Duarte at Cerritos Valley Christian

By John Honell, Correspondent
The Bonita High School girls basketball team has been on a mission since losing in the semifinals of last year’s CIF-Southern Section Division 3A playoffs. The Bearcats’ mission of winning a championship remains on track after an easy second-round win, 77-38, over Jurupa Valley on Saturday. (to continue click thread)

Northview coach Jeff Butler retires following loss: The Orange Lutheran High School girls basketball team showed its fans exactly why it is the No.1-seeded team in the CIF-Southern Section Division 3A playoffs as the Lancers beat Northview 63-31 in a second-round game.

Workman goes down: The Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy girls basketball team scored 51 points in the first half of its CIF-Southern Section Division 5AA second-round playoff game en route to a 77-50 victory over visiting Workman on Saturday.

More on Amat, Duarte, Wilson: Bishop Amat High School’s girls basketball team once again had to count on its defense to advance to the quarterfinals of the CIF-Southern Section Division 3A playoffs with a 40-38 win at Irvine on Saturday.

CIF-SS Girls Hoops Playoffs
Saturday’s Second Round results
Division 1A

Chino Hills 52, Ventura 35
Division 3AA
Diamond Ranch 55, North Torrance 43
Division 3A
Orange Lutheran 63, Northview 31
Bishop Amat 40, Irvine 38
Temescal Canyon 61, Wilson 38
Bonita 77, Jurupa Valley 38
Division 4A
Windward 78, Azusa 21
Sierra Canyon 72, Gladstone 28
Division 4A
Duarte 60, Estancia 48
Division 5AA
Flintridge Sacred Heart 77, Workman 50

The Bearcats (26-2) will be on the road for Wednesday’s quarterfinal game against either Palos Verdes or Citrus Hill (Perris).

The Bearcats, seeded second in Division 3A, put the game away early by taking a 30-4 lead at the end of the first quarter.

“We were up-tempo from the beginning,” Bearcats coach Darren Baumunk said. “We started slow the last game and we wanted to get going early.

“We didn’t
Bonita s Stephanie Vana attempts a shot during Saturday s CIF-SS 3A Division second-round playoff game against visiting Jurupa Valley. The second-seeded Bearcats improved to 26-2 with a 77-38 victory and advanced to Wednesday s quarterfinals. (David Thomas, Correspondent)
want to fall behind and give his team any momentum. We were ready to play since our shootaround this morning.”

The Jaguars took a 3-2 lead when Judit Bresino hit a 3-pointer to beat the shot clock less than a minute into the game. The Bearcats then went on a 25-0 run.

Freshman Nikki Wheatley had two steals she converted into easy scores and finished with 14 points. The Bearcats’ defense forced so many turnovers the Jaguars had to call two timeouts in the first quarter.

“Nikki had a couple of steals,” Baumunk said. “We started in a man defense then switched to a zone. We know we can play man but we know we will play different teams and we wanted to see how we could play zone. It’ll help if we can play both ways.”

Junior center Brianna Kennedy scored on a putback and slashed to the basket for three more scores as she scored 8 of her 10 points in the first quarter.

“We knew we had to come out strong tonight,” Kennedy said. “We wanted to make a statement that we were ready to play. I played club ball for their coach (Dario Frias) a couple of years ago. He’s really good so we knew they would be fundamentally sound.”

Madison Zylstra hit 3 of 4 from behind the arc in the run and had a team-high 18 points.

“Bre had some nice looks tonight,” Baumunk said. “We’ve been trying to get entry passes to her so she gets easy layups. If we’re going to do any damage at the end, we need her to come up big.”

Junior Alysia Trejo hit three 3-pointers in the second quarter but Jurupa Valley couldn’t close the gap. She led all scorers with 22 points.

The Bearcats started the second half with an 11-0 run when Baumunk took out his starters 4:18 left in the third quarter.

“When Nikki took that good, hard spill, that was it,” Baumunk said. “I didn’t want any fluke accidents with us ahead like that.”

The Bearcats’ bench, led by junior Sarah Jackson, who missed her first two seasons because of shoulder surgery, increased the lead to 70-30 the end of three quarters. Jackson finished with eight points.

“I think we were mentally focused tonight,” Baumunk said. “The other night we weren’t at the beginning. We were all the way to the end tonight.”

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